Rapscallion, Inc. is a CAD services consultancy, focused on surfacing (digital sculpting) and training. More importantly, we are all about helping processes, products, and people push the envelope. We will ask hard questions, talk about the elephant on the table, and encourage learning.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Thank you, Dr. Seuss! It’s a simple desire, albeit one that can quickly become complicated with details, but the central tenet is that making the world a better place IS possible.
Here are a few ideas we care about a whole awful lot…
Passion. We’re sunk without it. Yes, the entire world. Imagine what would happen if nobody cared about anything, if nobody felt compelled to do anything beyond the ordinary. Passion has given rise to some of the most lasting and iconic movements, music, ideas, loves and objects. From the curvaceous tonnage of Michelangelo’s marble compositions to the ethereal transience of Mozart’s music, passion makes all the difference – passion to find what speaks to humanity, to evoke the details that make the experience far from simplistic, to imbue something with an extraordinary life of its own.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But so is the expression and comprehension of a thought. How amazing is it that this critical container for emotions and details and inspirations can communicate an idea from person to person, and transfer through the ages no less?
Communication methods – words, sketches, sculptures, and pixels to name just a few – have their different strengths and ease, but all accomplish the magical task of conveying intangible cognitive musings to the grasp of others.
Diversity is incredibly significant in so many facets of life, from the global biodiversity of flora and fauna to tasteful concoctions of food and drink to the widening scope of devices you could read this on. We have certainly not gotten here by relying only on camels or rice or mainframes – all steps were an evolution, rich with interwoven dependencies, and sometimes, a radical change.
The same is true for our organizations – a benevolent diversity of skill sets and knowledge is more conducive to creations with richness and promising life spans.
Our world is becoming increasingly intertwined and inescapably complex. We could easily just react second by second, mesmerized by the thronged streets, hypnotized by 100+ channels, and riveted by the pace of global news. Similarly, the ever more compressed and complex process of creation pressures design to become a patchwork of second-by-second solutions.
Alternatively, what if we stop for a moment, revisit those early guesses, consider the grander scope, and create a seamless, appropriate, whole?
Rapscallion, Inc. provides high-quality Surfacing services, delivering digital models infused with attention to all details, and specializing in complex parametric modeling in Creo (aka Pro/Engineer or Wildfire).
We’ve worked with Fortune 100 companies, well known design studios, one man shops, fledgling start-ups, etc. All of them understand our passion, commitment and belief in both Art and Function.
Statements by the artist:
Surfacing is the creation of form. It can also be an intricate integration of many product development disciplines, sculpting an answer to “what is it, how does it work, and how is it made?”
Both versions – all versions – of surfacing are a negotiation of materials and desires for the purpose of engendering visual and tactile interactions. Hold it, sit in it, watch it, push on it, walk through it…
All of those “its” have an exterior, an exterior that can be infused with intent, an exterior that can evoke emotion and thought.
Computers make product development ever easier, but they do not change the need for designers to have vision, patience, and a sense of art. Even though it’s only electrons, the form still has to be visualized and crafted step-by-click.
A twist: any sculptor must understand their medium, but this step-by-click crafting of electrons is defined by math flow, control points, curvature plots and other non-artistic concepts, transforming a digital sculptor into a polymath, an expert on the mathematical logic of visual flow, thinking half math, half art.
Luckily, digital sculpting differs from Michelangelo’s work in one significant way – it’s easy to add material.
Surfacing is an intersection of art and constraint.
It occupies a unique niche that is subject to inputs from a widely diverse array of disciplines – industrial design; mechanical, electrical and manufacturing engineering; marketing; etc.
With this niche comes an opportunity to be a creative, constructive, and wide reaching nexus – a nexus for crucial information from each discipline that can be negotiated, bartered, brought to life and light, and integrated in a spectacular fashion.
Rapscallion, Inc. provides mechanical design services, delivering digital models and ideas that address needs from early conceptual work to production design issues. We have a long history of playing with wrenches and a belief in quality work.
Within the entire scope of mechanical objects, from simple blocks to horrendously complex systems, creativity, simplicity and elegance all play a role for these objects as they are brought from glint to reality.
From the notebooks of Rapscallion, Inc…
The best engineering question ever: what are we really trying to solve?
It’s easy to get caught in a corner, trying to make a bolt fit. Back up a few steps and try a different perspective… Why that bolt? Why that spot? Why that bracket? Why arrange it that way? What are we really trying to do?
Often it isn’t easy to entertain those questions amidst the flow of a project, but it is very worthwhile in the long run when the final result is refined, effective, and well-built.
We have a well-loved and well-worn process of considering and iterating through design solutions to find the most elegant and appropriate.
Be it CAD work, drawing in a notebook, or building prototypes, we bring creativity, conceptual thinking, problem solving, and possibility to the forefront.
And persistence.
There are plenty of courses that teach button-by-button and option-by-option details. We prefer to emphasize the overarching fundamentals of Creo’s parametric system, where and why to use the different capabilities, how to analyze the results, and techniques that improve model modification and reuse, workflow, and modeling best practices.
We won’t give you instructions so detailed you don’t get to think or be creative. We will give you involved interaction and mentoring. We will facilitate conversations about strategy, about process, about workflow, about data flow, about you.
In any course we present you are assured to find yourself at a whiteboard, marker in hand, drawing curvature plots, diagraming data flows or describing what co-surfular means. 100% guaranteed. It’s not to make you nervous. It’s not to see if you can draw. It’s because we believe in participation. You, participating in that class, in your work, in your life. We don’t stand up front so you can answer emails or keep one eye on the game. We’re there to participate in your learning.
We love to listen. These courses are not about what we have done, they are about what you will do with the knowledge. We want to hear about your backgrounds, your tough corners, your department processes, your workflows, your products. There are many ways to describe a workflow, to delve into the intricacies and benefits of a feature, and only by understanding what you face on a daily basis can we best explain these to you.
Adaptation is one of the greatest assets mankind has. It sets us free to live in wildly different climates, travel in different cultures, learn how to use the latest technological gadget, and so much more. Why adapt? Because it makes you more effective. And just as you want to become more effective by being in this course with us, we want to adapt the discussions to best suit your needs. If you don’t want to hear about knots or parametrics or extrusions, we can certainly alter course.
© copyright – rapscallion, inc.
pacn @ rapscallion-inc.com
206.218.9134
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