Grasshopper Structural Mastery Course Review
Last week I completed a structural design course presented by Nolan Kim and LeManoosh titled GRASSHOPPER STRUCTURAL MASTERY. Covered in the course are the fundamentals of applying the three main methods of creating the lightweight structures often seen in additive manufacturing. An example, included in the course, is the sort of footwear manufacturing the likes of which Nike has been employing as early as 2013.
Structure design exercises created during the course.
The software required is Grasshopper 3D which now ships with the latest versions of Rhinoceros 3D. I’ve been using Rhino since 2002 and have been trying to get a grip on Grasshopper since its early days as a plugin. For those unfamiliar, Grasshopper uses a form of visual programming to create geometry in Rhino. Users move and connect nodes of various functions to create code that defines what is created and computes the solutions in real time. This is why the methodology is often referred to as computational modeling. There are other tools available for computational modeling, and Nolan mentions them in the course, but this course is focussed on the Rhino/Grasshopper pairing.
Before kicking off a full review of the course, I want to mention two more things of note. First, modeling using Grasshopper is likely to be easier for those who have a background in math, especially geometry defining subjects. Those who don’t can still succeed, but it was satisfying to tickle that side of my brain and helped me anticipate a path forward in solving some of the tasks outlined in the course. Second, not every designer has access to or works in an environment that supports additive manufacturing, but that doesn’t preclude them from benefiting from this course. There are plugins for Grasshopper that allow building of structures more in line with traditional manufacturing processes. This course builds a foundation to carry into exploring more of what Rhino can do. Without further delay, here is my review of my experience taking the course.
From left to right: Voronoi structure, TPMS structure, Beam structure
I would like to begin to say that Nolan Kim is a top notch instructor. I didn’t look extensively into his background, but I assume that this isn’t his first time teaching. His calm presentation and course structure are well crafted and suitable to those eager to learn. He has a slightly monotone delivery and that is about the only negative thing I can say. It is clear that he is very knowledgeable and is serious in his delivery. While he makes little use of levity or metaphor in his presentation, I did find his calmness as rational and approachable. In fact, he encourages those with issues to reach out and ask for help, which I did and we were able to work out a surface creation issue I was having together. Thanks again Nolan! I also enjoyed watching him problem solving his functions on the fly during the course, because that is a big part of working in Grasshopper. Even someone with his experience needs to go back and check that his nodes are correctly linked up.
Beam Structure midsole employing pulled points and matching outer cage
The content, laid out on the splash page, provides a clear path for what you will end up building and the learning steps required to get there. He starts with the main structural design principles with simple geometric examples (cubes and spheres) and when the principles are mastered, more complex real-world exercises allow you to build on those fundamentals and apply them to relevant products. The only struggle for some was the initial install of plugins needed to create the functions. Nolan had attempted to package up his plugin files, but it seems that some need to be directly downloaded from their creators’ sites. After a few minor hiccups and restarts the lessons begin. It is pretty smooth sailing to get through the creation of your first and subsequent tasks. I often paused the video alt-tabbed over to grasshopper to repeat what he had in his file, so the videos end up taking about twice as long as their runtime if you work alongside Nolan. I did side-track myself at one point because I wanted to try something I had learned in a later video on something from an earlier one. The video lesson format allows for learning at your own pace or fiddling around a bit if you want to do some unguided exploration.
What is covered by the course should not be taken as all Grasshopper or structural design has to offer. In fact there is a huge community of developers building plugins and if you know C# you can build your own component modules. Something that has come up a lot in my professional work are explorations of pattern and texture. I wish Nolan had gone into a bit of detail on what is possible beyond what was covered to give a better sense of what can be done with this toolset. Another thing I feel was somewhat missing is a workflow that supports work environments based on a large population of Creo and Windchill users. In other words, how does one get from static meshes into the engineering database (file formats in particular) because there is no way a Creo user is going to attempt to rebuild these things natively. And last thought, on the front end, how does one navigate from an early sketch to first model? It would be great to have a simple flow chart that points users how to start building depending on what is desired. This may come more effortlessly with practice, but the novice will still feel a bit lost unless what is desired was covered in this course.
That’s my two-cents. All in all it was a pretty fun and engaging course. Superior to the plethora of youtube tutorials out there that lack the depth of why things should be built in certain ways. Clear presentation, structure and feedback loop. I’d say it was a little pricey for an introductory course, but maybe he’ll add a second, more advanced course and be able to drop the price a little. Maybe even apply some of my thoughts. Cheers and have fun building!
-TR
