Screwdriver

Screwdriver

This assignment was relatively straight forward as it asked for the construction of a toy screwdriver. To do this I had use old and learn how to use new tools in Rhino.

Using provided measurements I began constructing a basic outline of the general shape and size of a screwdriver. Upon completion of that, using the free form curve tool and near o-snaps I created the actual tool outline.

In order to make it into a 3D object I selected my base outline and revolved it full circle. This then gave me the basic shape of the screwdriver that I needed to obtain before moving on to the next step... customization.

To add details to the 3D object I had created and looked currently like a very poor screwdriver I first added customizations to the handle. For the handle I arrayed spheres around the length of the handle and cones around the base. I figured this would give me texture and interest for the handle. I then differenced the objects to create the proper indentations.

For the actual tip of the toy tool I decided to create a phillips head screwdriver. My decision though posed an interesting challenge as it was a bit difficult to achieve the proper shape. I first started by creating a polygon curve as a four pointed star. At this point I tried different means of extruding to create the proper shape but kept ending up with an inverted tip, the wrong shape, or the wrong part differencing. With frustration I briefly gave up on the assignment.

After taking some time to reassess how to approach the problem I discovered a solution. I first created a plane at the end of the screwdriver tip and split the handle and metal stem from the tip. I then lofted two stars of varying size together to create the proper shape of a phillips head screwdriver. From that point it was simple to split the tip using the lofted surface and union the phillips head tip to the rest of the screwdriver.

In the end my final product came out in my opinion great for the level of skill I had been learning in Rhino at the time. If I were to return to this project I might find myself wanting to improve the phillips head on the toy screwdriver and even create a version that is more realistic.

I learned a lot of problem solving skills in this project and was happy with my work in the end overall on the general construction. I did explore how to use array and extrude rather extensively which will help me in future projects and learning. I returned to this project to render it as a toy screwdriver recently and wanted to share it now.

Here is a brief gif of the whole process...