ROB 498/599 Blog

  The “Mystic Marrakesh Serpent Garden” surrealism transforms the found object of a garden hose into an enchanted snake. This project’s main inspiration is the snake charmers found in the Jemaa El Fnaa square in Marrakech, Morocco. My dad immigrated to the US from Salé, Morocco and visiting family there has been an integral part of my upbringing and development. As a result, I knew that I wanted to incorporate my Moroccan heritage into one of my Rob 599 projects. In addition to the snake, I fabricated the Berber goat horn Mezmar, which is played to “charm” the snake. I added blue accents to the horn because Morocco has such vibrant colors in their crafts and the blue reminds me of the city in the North called Chefcahouen that is entirely painted blue. From the start of the project, I knew I wanted to utilize both the 3D printer and the laser cutter to fully explore digital fabrication. I decided to use the laser cutter to create a lattice hinge in Balsa wood to resemble the woven snake

 After a trip to Michaels using the Ann Arbor buses, I was able to pick up the necessary supplies to complete my project. I created an artistic mess in my living room, which is an essential part of the process. The first challenge was positioning the hose. I first painted the snake and horn. I decided to add blue accents to the horn because Morocco has such vibrant colors in their crafts. I went with the blue color because it reminds me of a city in the North called Chefcahouen, where the whole city is painted blue, as shown below.  Next, I tried to hot glue the hose together in circular coils within the pot, but the hose did not stay together. After removing most of the glue residue, I decided to arrange the hose in the pot more abstractly and allowed it to freehold itself. I like the way it turned out because it seems like a more natural snake position. Additionally, the pot was also way smaller than I anticipated and the lattice basket was too big for the pot, so I decided to opt f

  I was so happy with the way my prints came out for the most part. I was so excited, that I totally forgot to take pictures of them printing. That is something I plan on improving for the next project series of blog posts. My snake printed beautifully and after removing the supports and sanding it down, it was ready for painting. I also decided to keep some of the support pattern as it added a cool looking texture to the piece. As for the mezmar horn, the print was successful. However, the 3D printed threaded parts were not 100% the best idea. While they held strong, after removing and screwing the piece back in twice it broke and the screw part got stuck in the cylinder. The Robotics Makerspace team and I brainstormed ways to fix this issue. I ultimately decided to go with the pin and snap piece option. I printed another piece to fit into the hexagon and superglued a metal pin within the pieces. Both the snake head and the horn feel sturdy.

There was a lot of CAD done for Project 1, some of which I did not end up using, but it was still interesting to make and learn new CAD techniques along the way. I first made a base for the snake the sit on and for the lattice to go around, but I decided to go with the suggestion from Alyssa to use a Terracotta/clay planter instead. Next, I found a model online of a snake and I imported into Solidworks and made an extruded cut to get rid of everything but the head. I then scaled it in Cura and exported it as gcode to upload to the Ender printers. Then, I created the mezmar horn. I created two separate parts and the cylinder part containing a mated threaded M6 screw and a cone with a cut at the top and hole wizard corresponding hole. After releasing the screw would not work, as you'll see in my next blog post, I fabricated a snap piece.  

Today I successfully laser cut the straight lattice hinge basket part of the project. I created the lattice design using illustrator and exported it as a pdf. Thank you, William Stann on the Robotics Makerspace team for helping me troubleshoot!    

  For my first project, I stayed close to home. My dad immigrated to the US from Salé, Morocco and visiting family there has been an integral part of my upbringing and development. This project was inspired by the snake charmers in Marrakesh and will be utilizing a garden hose and shovel as found objects transformed into a snake.

  Hello and welcome to the blog! I am Leila, a senior studying Robotics and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. I am excited to explore the more creative side of engineering and making through my ROB 599 projects. Are you ready to embark on this journey with me?