Kate Behrens Proposal: Mixed Techniques




Proposal Statement

    I plan to make a hummingbird feeder! My family and I always put feeders out every year and love seeing hummingbirds stop at our house. 

Advice

    For this project, I sought the advice of both Ryan and Dawson. Ryan suggested that I use acrylic to make the bottle that would hold the syrup (using the laser cutter). He also said it would work best if it was rectangular and square in shape, rather than circular, and to test how well we can manipulate the acrylic before making the full design in fusion.  

    Dawson agreed with Ryan, especially in using acrylic for the bottles. They recommended acrylic because it is water tight, as opposed to something 3D printed that might leak. Dawson also strongly recommended using wood or cardboard to test the bottle design to see how I want the final project to look.   

Rough Game Plan

    For my project, I plan to make the bottles for the feeder out of acrylic (per Ryan's suggestion) using the laser cutter. I also plan to use the 3D printer to make a flower shaped ports for the hummingbirds, and creating a holder for the feeder out of a wire coat hanger. First I'll try and make my bottles out of cardboard, just to get an idea of what shape to make, then try a test run to see if it'll be feasible. If it works, I'll move on to the design in Fusion for both the bottles and flower ports! 

    Next, I'll create everything in Fusion (with the help of Ryan and Dawson of course). From Fusion, I plan to move over to the 3D printer and laser cutter to start bringing my designs to life! The last step will be assembling the port to the bottle and creating a holder by bending a wire coat hanger. 

Needs 

    For this project, I will need to learn how to work with acrylic in the laser cutter. It seems to be relatively straight forward, but still sounds easier said then done. Same with 3D printing and creating a flower design in Fusion. The only outside product I need is the wire coat hanger for the holder. Most importantly I will need plenty of help from Dawson! 

 

 



Inspiration for the flower port 










Idea for bottle 









This is a loose model for the wire holder 







  









 


Comments

  1. Ryan HodgeApril 8, 2025 at 9:18 AM

    So, we have another machine/process that you might want to consider. The vacuum former. It's real sweet and can form acrylic around a mold (you bird feeder shape). The advantage being that its a single piece of material. It should look better and hold water better. The process involves making a mold (either by hand or 3D printing or CNC routing), laser cutting the acrylic blank, and then shaping the blank around the mold in the cavum former. Other than that your general work flow sounds good. Like Dawson suggested, quick prototypes from paper and cardboard with help you model better and save a lot time on the back end.

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