Main Project

I came across this picture when trying to find a functional, minimalistic woodworking-based project. My original goal was to create something that would fit into the decor of a log cabin. Since I have moved out of my family’s home, I have been trying to build what I need in the kitchen. Building a spice and paper towel organiser would be a perfect addition. I am set on the minimalist, clean, and wooden look, to build into the rustic aesthetic; however, I am curious how this organizer would look with different aesthetics. So I took the picture and loaded it into ChatGPT and gave it instructions on how to change it to target a futuristic and cyberpunk aesthetic. 

First, the moderate aesthetic. This was my first time using AI to make images, and I was not sure what it would come up with. This raw metal theme is an interesting contrast with smaller compartments and more complex geometries, which adds to the complexity but takes away from the usability. I do enjoy how this modern aesthetic turned out more than I thought I would, and I would be more intrigued if it were not for the increased price in materials, as well as vastly increasing fabrication time.

Secondly, I enjoy the cyberpunk aesthetic, so I used ChatGPT to make a version of the organizer that also resembles this aesthetic. I was pleasantly surprised by the image generation. It reminded me of Halo maps mixed with pack-a-punched weapons from COD zombies, which are two video games I played growing up, bringing some nostalgia for me. The far more complicated geometry, texture, and neon lights pulled this beautiful image together. This concept generation made me strongly consider changing how I go about this creation. By 3D printing these pieces, then painting them, and using an Arduino to create the neon elements. 

I decided to stick with my original rustic aesthetic since I want to have a woodworking project that doesn’t require power or require doing tens of hours of machining. Despite not changing my materials or aesthetics, this practice does provide me with an alternative idea of how to shape this. Instead of having it split into thirds I found it would be better to slice the turntable into halves with the paper towels on one side and all the spices on the other side so that they are all there and you are not searching between sections this would also make more space to store spices like how I illustrated in the drawing above.