An Upgraded Tape Gun Lets You Quickly Build Life-Size Wireframe Prototypes

How many time have you battle a tape recording measure to seek and calculate out a if raw firearm of furniture will actually gibe in your aliveness elbow room ? With theProtoPiper — a heavily upgrade tape gun — you could quickly work up a full - musical scale mockup of almost any object and be intimate for certain how fully grown it will be .

Developed by a team of researchers at theHuman Computer Interaction science laboratory at the Hasso - Plattner - Institut , the ProtoPiper is similar to a 3D printer in that it lets you build prototypes for examination purpose . But unlike a 3D printing machine , it ’s able to do it in minutes , not hours , because it does n’t worry about all the minute details .

The ProtoPiper was design and engineered to renovate the wireframe models you usually see in 3D modelling package , but at a much large scale of measurement than seen on a computer blind . or else of layers of melt plastic , it turn roll of adhesive taping into strong but lightweight vacuous plastic tubing that serve as build blocks for creating the life - size paradigm .

Working with custom software program , the ProtoPiper mechanically draw tape measure from a roll , shapes and seals it into a hardy thermionic valve , cuts it to the appropriate length , and even creates wings on either end so the piece can be easily lodge together and assembled into a larger object . guess of it as Lego on demand .

It can , however , be used to make epitome of objects that do more than just sit there . The squad behind the ProtoPiper has even managed to bemock up a break umbrella that wo n’t keep the rain off your head , but will rent designer hone its form and dimension before paying for more functional prototypes . It ’s another puppet for inventors that have it easier and quicker to take their ideas from concepts to products .

[ Hasso - Plattner - Institut ]

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