Skip to main content

Final Project: Non-Hylomorphic CNC Machine Design

Due: June 9th 2026

Digital fabrication’s paradigm of imposing digital form onto passive matter can be characterized by Ingold’s description of a hylomorphic model of making. As an alternative, Ingold proposes a morphogenetic model, where the maker’s role is to “follow the materials” by engaging in “an ongoing generative movement that is at once itinerant, improvisatory and rhythmic”. The way a beaver constructs a dam is exemplary of this method; as Ingold observes, “the beaver... inhabits an environment that has been decisively modified by the labours of its forbears, in building dams and lodges, and will in turn contribute to the fashioning of an environment for its progeny”. -- From Batra et al. Convivial Fabrication: Towards Relational Computational Tools For and From Craft Practices

Design Brief​

CNC Machines have historically imposed a very particular form of workflows on a wide range of creative practitioners. Hobbyist 3D printers function in a very similar way to industrial milling machines from over 50 years ago. It does not have to be this way!

Your task is to pursue morphogenetic CNC machine design meaning you must let a target form of making determine how the machine looks, operates, and is controlled. You must identify a creative process, workflow, or target artifact domain outside CNC, determine some key aspects of that process that could benefit from CNC machining capabilities, and then invent a CNC machine purpose-built for that process.

In pursuing this task, you should consider where manual control, real time feedback, a custom user interface, or a custom mechanism might provide a meaningful intervention for your target application space.

You should aim to satisfy the following design dimensions:

  1. Relevance: It should be clear through appearance, functionality, and output why your machine is meaningful for the creative practice you aim to support.
  2. Usability In what ways does your machine specifically support the usability needs specific to your intended community and target outcomes? Does it build on established skills? Have a familiar user interface?
  3. Responsiveness Your machine should not require an established CAD-CAM-CNC workflow unless this is explicitly meaningful to the community you target (but ideally it is not).

Project Deliverables​

  • Proposal: A description of your target outcome.
  • Functioning Machine, Mechanism, or Interface See the proposal for details.
  • Output A minimum of 2 artifacts created in part or in whole with your machine.
  • Documented Code Complete commented source code for your Stepdance program, uploaded to your team Github.
  • Development Documentation: Step-by step documentation including text, photos, and video showing your prototyping process and final results.
  • Reflection 500 words minimum reflecting on the process and outcome. Published to your github.io site. To be completed following the in-class critique.

All projects will be team projects unless otherwise specified​

Project Details​

Milestone 1: Proposal​

  • Due Date: Tuesday May 5th
  • Submission: Readme file on Github.io website minimum 700 words.
  • Requirements
  1. Identifying your creative domain and devising a preliminary design and justification for CNC intervention: Provide a statement that defines the workflow or artifacts you are seeking to support, the envisioned practitioners of your tool, and what existing skills, methods and techniques you seek to extend, preserve or otherwise support through your machine.
  2. A proposal of what you plan physically prototype and your target area of technical development. There are three potential areas of technical development: A. Building a new mechanism from component parts- e.g. creating a custom machine B. Modifying the mechanism of an existing machine (e.g. adding or swapping out an axis) C. Developing a high res custom interface. You must identify ONE of these areas as the primary objective for your project and argue for why this is the most meaningful intervention for your target application.
  3. A description of the envisioned requirements for your software - e.g. how will you technically develop the interaction. This does not have to be a complete description but should cover how you think your project will work
  4. A list of required components (envisioned, not final)
  5. A list of questions, challenges that come up when planning your idea.

Milestone 2: Mid-point in class review​

  • Date: Due by May 21th
  • Format: In class 5 minute presentation per group of current project status from website.
  • Requirement: All current documentation status uploaded to website. List of current challenges and proposals to tackle them. Photos and videos of current system status. At least one (rough) sample artifact output.

Milestone 3: Peer Review​

  • Date: Due by May 26th
  • Format: Pair up with your assigned peer review team to discuss current progress, deviations from the proposal, and technical hurdles.
  • Requirement: Teams will be matched in groups of 2- Following the project overview, set up 30 minute meeting in person to discuss the project with your team

Your conversation should focus on- 1. your team's current progress, 2. any changes or deviations you have made from their original idea, plans for addressing challenges that have come up in the process of prototyping their project.

Deliverable: The reviewee team must document the feedback session by summarizing the conversation and feedback they received.

Example:

Peer reviewer: Team Pancho / Peer reviewee: Team Cook

  1. Team Pancho and Team cook schedule a 30 minute meeting.

  2. Team Pancho presents current progress/ idea to Team Cook in the meeting for 10 minutes

  3. Team Cook asks questions/ provides feedback

  4. Team Pancho documents the discussion their final project website materials

  5. Team Pancho and Team cook reverse roles and repeat starting from step 1

Milestone 4: Final Presentation​

  • Due Date: June 9th Setup begins at 2:00pm

    Critique begins at 2:30pm and concludes at 5:15pm

    Each team will have a table in either 2003 or 2024 to setup their machine AND artifacts they produced with it.

    We will spend 25 minutes per project. Each team will have 8 minutes to demonstrate and describe their machine and artifacts.

    After that, we will allow 8 minutes for other members of the class to try out your machine / interaction.

    Following that, we will have 9 minutes for discussion/ critique.

    Be prepared with your working machine

  • Requirement: All documentation should be complete and online by end of week Friday June 12th 11:59 pm AOE.

Class Critique Dimensions​

We will discuss each project along the following categories and corresponding dimensions. Note that none of the dimensions are structured as axes reflecting positive and negative values e.g. it is not necessarily preferable that all machines have highly customized mechanisms, rather than standardized ones. The goal instead is to characterize the qualities of the technologies you have developed and understand what the resulting design and development tradeoffs were.

  • Interaction and Interface
    • Familiar -> Unfamiliar Does the system resemble a tool or machine you are familiar with, or that some class of practitioner might perceive as familiar? Or does it feel fundamentally novel and/or alien?
    • Walk Up and Use -> Requires Skill / Training Would someone need to practice with the machine to use it effectively? Or is the interaction relatively controlled and constrained? What element of risk, if any does the machine introduce?
  • Mechanism
    • Standard -> Custom Does the machine necessitate a novel mechanism (or mechanisms) in any part of its functionality? Does it adapt existing mechanisms
    • Underengineered -> Overengineered What is the relationship between the amount of engineering complexity and the application? How robust is the mechanism and how many cycles of operation is it likely to withstand? What level of prototype is the mechanism? How might it be improved?
    • Tool-like -> Machine-like How similar is the machine to an automated fabrication technology versus a manual tool?
  • Artifacts

    • Refined -> Rough What is the degree of craftsmanship of the artifacts?

    • Can be produced by other means -> Only feasible with this machine Could the artifacts be produced by other means? If so, what would be involved? Does the machine reduce challenges or create new opportunities compared to other workflows for artifact production?

    • Manual -> Automatically produced How much of the artifact is produced through manual means vs automation? Where is the line drawn?

    • Pre-planned -> Determined during fabrication To what degree is the design of the artifacts determined/specified in advance of material interaction?

Inspiration​

  • Turn-by-Wire: Computationally Mediated Physical Fabrication: ACM Paper
    • Rundong Tian, Vedant Saran, Mareike Kritzler, Florian Michahelles, and Eric Paulos. UIST 2019.
  • Interactive Fabrication: New Interfaces for Digital Fabrication: ACM Paper
    • Karl D.D. Willis, Cheng Xu, Kuan-Ju Wu, Golan Levin, and Mark D. Gross. TEI 2011.
  • Plotting with Thread: Fabricating Delicate Punch Needle Embroidery with X-Y Plotters: ACM Paper
  • Throwing Out Conventions: Reimagining Craft-Centered CNC Tool Design through the Digital Pottery Wheel: ACM Paper
    • Ilan Moyer, Sam Bourgault, Devon Frost, and Jennifer Jacobs. CHI 2024.
  • Drawing with a Modified CNC: Instructables
    • Tutorial on repurposing CNC hardware for drawing applications.
  • Arnaud Pfeffer: Instagram
    • Focused on mechanical drawings and custom tool heads.
  • Piotr Waśniowski: Instagram
    • Technical plotter experiments and precision linework.
  • Drawing with a Modified CNC: Instructables
    • Tutorial on repurposing CNC hardware for drawing applications.
  • Cardboard Machine Toolkit: Machine Examples ACM Paper Presentation Video
    • Nadya Peek, James Coleman, Ilan Moyer, Neil Gershenfeld. CHI 2017. Paper
  • Jubilee: An Extensible Machine For Multi-Tool Fabrication CHI 20220 (Open source design!) Wiki
    • Joshua Vasquez, Hannah Twigg-Smith, Jasper Tran O'Leary, and Nadya Peek. Paper
  • MIT Tool Design Course Example Projects video
    • Instructors: Ilan Moyer