The Wand Chooses the Wizard, Mr. Potter...

Before you interrupt me Kanye-style, just remember that I am the girl who got an incantation from the Harry Potter series tattooed on her skin for life. You live by the wand, you die by the wand....or something to that effect. In my younger and more vulnerable years, J.K. Rowling gave me some advice I've been turning over in my mind ever since...just kidding. Wrong book. But I was heavily influenced by Harry Potter throughout my whole life. Therefore, it's natural that I should want to bring to life one of the most iconic symbols of the series: the Elder Wand.

*Ooooooh, Ahhhh*

Components and Materials

I intend to 3D-print the wand in its entirety, except for a small LED bulb at the end of it. I think that since my project will be primarily composed of 3D-printed material, it won't be complex by way of its components. However, since I want to go a step further and add the LED bulb, I think I'll need to create a component that will enable me to switch it on and off as desired. I will use Autodesk Inventor to create a scalable design, so that I can recreate the wand as necessary.

Visuals

An LED-bulb used in a similar way that I envision for this project. Threading it through the middle of the wand will probably be my best bet.

Close-up illustration from the Harry Potter Wikia site - yeah. That's a real thing.

Seeing as I'd never actually spend money on a regular wooden one from Universal Studios, I thought this would be the perfect time for the skills I've learned in this class to be put to use making something I've always wanted to have in my literary-nerd-collection.

**Update as of 12/1/2015**
I'd mocked up my original thought process for this project in CAD, before I'd thought about making this project an assembly, given the size limitations on the printers we are using.
Thoughts are always welcome. :)

The unblemished, undetailed, boring version. *yawn*

Final Make: Metal Vessel

I'd first like to acknowledge the fact that I, Amanda Aalpoel, Actual Human, used Real, Actual Power Tools to accomplish the final part of this project. I, who avoid using sharp objects and power tools whenever possible, and therefore should not be allowed near them due my fear of cutting off an appendage or six.

The Actual Drill Press *oohs, ahhs*

This project was such a huge learning experience for me, who has no experience whatsoever in metal crafting. I now have some small idea of the capacity of patience (and much more skill than I possess at the moment) necessary to create beautiful artwork or just something really cool.

If I had the opportunity to do this project again, I think I would approach the design in a slightly different way in that I would like to see what it would have looked like with more tabs and screws to hold it together. (I proved to be extremely unskilled when scoring my aluminum, even with practice beforehand.) Also, working with a long piece of metal that got in the way a lot of the time made me a little nervous when trying to maneuver it while scoring and using the drill press.

Metal Crown, mark 1, 2, and 3.

Given the opportunity to do a project similar to this, I might go for something a bit simpler in terms of folds, or at least cutting and scoring. I did enjoy working on this project, overall.

Insta-worthy photo...hashtag-MakeThinkMake

The Crown is Restored! Huzzah!

I've made some design improvements to my metal crown that I'm happy with. As mentioned in my previous post, I was unsure whether the one tab would be sufficient for my final model once made in metal. So, I played around a bit with the idea of three tabs that would hold one screw each, junked that idea, and simply made another tab of the same dimensions and moved them around a bit.

The final unfolded model, which I then exported to a .dwg file format.

One interesting thing that came up was that I only had to make one corner seam before making the two individual bends, which I'm assuming was due to the fact that both tabs were sketched on the same plane and offset in the same way. Yay for less work! Just kidding, since I get to do the cardboard check again....