XMod - an Affordable, Modular, and Sustainable Alternative to Traditional Housing
Introduction: XMod - an Affordable, Modular, and Sustainable Alternative to Traditional Housing
Hello, and welcome! My name is <PERSON>, and I'm a Freshman at Suncoast Community Highschool in Florida. I am currently an IB student at Suncoast and as part of my program, I am required to create a "Personal Project" over the summer. As for my choice, I chose to learn about some Fusion360 skills and challenged myself to apply them in a project. I chose the "Make it Modular: Student Design Challenge" because I felt like it would be a nice way to challenge myself and help the community at the same time. While learning some skills in Fusion360, I kept looking over to the sliding backyard door in my house, and thought to myself "Why can't we make more than just a sliding door?". With that idea in mind, I set forth to create a prototype, utilizing a container base that would have its sides cut off and rails for walls that could serve several purposes. After about a month, prototyping, deliberating, thinking, and 3D Printing (A LOT of 3D Printing XD ), I ended up with xMod, my modular, affordable, and sustainable prototype alternative to traditional housing.
xMod's mission is to offer an essentially upgradable house, where you can start with the barebones and work your way up. Unfortunately, there are many people who may not be able to afford a typical home with all the commodities, and that's where xMod is trying to help by providing a basis in which you can upgrade to a full home without having to spend the money of a full home upfront. With xMod, you can start with a base container and 4 walls and work your way up to a larger home, all the while keeping your initial investment of your base container and walls. 737
This can be great when you are able to upgrade your home because you do not have to invest the same amount of money upfront as you would with a similarly-sized house.
Throughout this Instructable, I will show you the steps I undertook to go from drawing to physical prototype, all the while teaching you some of the skills I learned while researching Fusion360. You can expect to learn about Sketch Constraints, Assemblies, Components, and Joints. Additionally, I will provide step-by-step instructions on how to create my prototype if you wish. Lastly, I will share an animation that sums up xMod. I hope you enjoy, and let's get started!
Supplies
Supplies for Full-Scaled Prototype
-Used 20' Shipping Container - Ranges from $1,750 - $2,500
-Reclaimed Pallet Wood - Ranges from $4.50 - $7 for standard pallets
-Reclaimed 4x4 - $8.10 per 12'
-Reclaimed 2x4 - $8.10 per 12'
-Cork Insulation - $1.05 per Sq. Ft
-Recycled Clay Roofing Tiles - Ranges from $0.30 - $2.00 per tile
-Recycled Glass Windows - Ranges from $15 - $30 per pane
-McMaster-Carr Casters - $13.93
-Some resources consulted include:
McMaster-Carr
rePurposed Materials Inc.
Colonial Barn Restoration Inc.
BuildingGreen
Roughly estimating the total cost of a base xMod house, I can say that an xMod base house can cost anywhere from $9,000 - $12,000 depending on your local prices.
Supplies for Scaled Prototype (Roughly 1/25 Scale Model)
-3x 1KG Spools of Filament - $23 - $25 Each
-About 10 Glue Sticks - $5 per 30pk
Tools I used
-Prusa I3 MK3s
-Wescott Glue Gun
-Flush Cutters
-Sanding Paper
To fully create this scale model, it took about 2 1/2 hours, excluding print time. Printing all the parts took about 4 days running the 3D printer.
Link to all sorted STL files, G-Code files, and more files can be found on this Printables Page
Step 1: Planning Process
What did I do?
As with most things in life, its best practice to plan before hand. Before going into Fusion360, I started by drawing a visualization so I could start to develop a sense of what I wanted to create. So I started to bring up ideas of what I could make to create an alternative to traditional housing that could be modular and affordable. I then started to think of the idea of being able to upgrade your home just like upgrading your computer or 3D printer. 737