Tuesday (October 30) was the last whole class period we had to finish the seats. On Thursday we will have less time and the seats need to be ready, and by then we will have them completely done. During this class period we worked really hard to efficiently utilize the class period. Some of us worked on gluing while others started to cut the top parts that cover the chair. We basically just worked on our second chair since we are almost done with the first one. On Thursday we will just add the final touches (add the tape and finish gluing) to both.
In the picture above we see Calvin and Jaclyn adding/covering the outer part of the seat
Here is Jaclyn measuring the side of the chair to figure out how much cardboard she needs to make the part that will cover the top of the chair.
Here is what Jaclyn came up with. It is a support that is inside the top part of the chair, so that if someone wants to climb or sit there it will be reinforced.
Calvin cutting the pieces of the seat that were sticking out.
Today our group began putting the finishing touches on each piece of our slide. The other rectangular side and the actual slide's edges were both taped up to make the corners look nice. The picture below shows the sides and the nested slide and ramp. Once the bottom was on the slide and the rest was taped, our main focus was the ramp.
When going to put the top on the ramp, we noticed that the construction was not done how it was supposed to be. Because the middle cross section was taller than the sides, we had to use a tool similar to a cheese grater to file down that piece. The sharpness of the tool made it easier to shave off the extra length of the cardboard. Here's a video of Jesika and Serena explaining how we went about fixing it.
Once that was fixed we added more supports to the thinner part of the ramp that didn't have a cross section. By doing this, it will create more stability for when children climb up the ramp to get to the top of the slide.
Toward the end of the day, we cut the pieces to put on the top of the ramp and next time we will glue them on. Don't forget to check back for more updates!
Winding down on the work days we have to complete our chairs, we are just putting final touches on our chair. Our two main goals for the day was to finish gluing the final supports and gluing down the bottoms of each chair.
We ran into one problem when trying to fit the bottom cardboard piece onto our first chair. It wasn't quite cut to fit the bottom, so where some parts fit perfectly, there were gaps at other parts of the chair. Below is a video of Madalyn discussing more about what we were working on that day and our problem.
By the end of the day, we were able to solve this problem by cutting the cardboard piece into two pieces. We were able to glue one sheet down, and on Thursday we will finish gluing the final piece.
As for our second chair, we were able to glue down the bottom cardboard piece with no problem.
So as of right now, we have one complete chair, and one that is just about there.
On Thursday, once we finish gluing the final bottom piece to our chair, we will tape all the sides of the chairs and will be complete!
Day 8 was a day full of hurdles. We are nearing the completion date of the project, and we have made great progress. However, this progress was not as easily come by as we would have hoped, but I guess we should have expected the trouble. The main goal today was to get all of the skins attached. We began by getting all of the sheets cut out at the sizes needed to cover the exposed innards of the chairs. This is where the first challenge came, as the chairs were not all uniform in size. They all had slight differences in their dimensions. Once a suitable size was found, the sheets were cut and Blake and I went to work on slicing them so they would be able to bend.
It is interesting that the chairs were the first to be completely finished were the chairs that we actually started later rather than the chairs we originally designed. I guess we were just caught up in these new chairs and were excited to see how they would turn out.
Once we finished the chairs with the new designed, it really felt like the project was coming together. But then we were faced with returning to the chairs with the original design. We found that in order to secure the top and bottom skin surfaces, we would need to glue them down while forcing the chairs to bend so that the skin rested evenly along all of the edges. This required all four of us, along with the help of Prof. Fobes, using all hands at once to get these attached. With 5 pairs of hands working on the chair, unfortunately none were left free to take a photo. Basically, we had to add the glue, hold down the surface until it dried, and then use clamps to bend the sides of the chair so that the edges remained underneath the top surface to allow it to set into a fixed shape. The chairs are looking good and should all be ready well in time for the exhibit!
As we continued to
implement the suggestions made by the New Children’s Museum’s curators, the L
Group proceeded to happily progress in Day 7. We started out by adding more
support to the edges, as this piece has complexity in its exterior, but mostly
in its interior. We also had to add more internal grid (in our case, our gridding
consists of the arches) in order for the roof to be more resistant and secure
for the children.
Above a photo of one of our colleagues making calculations for gluing the grid to our piece, (among additional touches).
Also, below there is an image that shows the support edges we added to make our piece stronger, and more resistant:
Theoretically, as we had
agreed with the curators’ constructive criticism, we cut deeper angles off the edge. To follow with
this, we worked and finished our ¼ scale mode. We included this modification to it as
well:
Another
modification for improving our tunnel was to add an arch to the “entrance.”
Below there is a photo of one of our members and Mister Fobes of course,
measuring the size of the template that will determine the shape of
the entrance:
Finally,
as our piece includes 6 tubes inside its structure for aesthetic, practical, and
interactive purposes (we don’t want them to be too interactive though, children could stick their heads in them and this can be dangerous). We thus opted (as our curators also suggested) to add a “blockage” to the tubes. We
are glad to say that on this day we successfully finished making all six tubes
safer for children. We did this by gluing a piece of a narrower tube in its
middle:
We are looking forward to continue to work on the final touches for our piece, we are pretty thrilled and honored for this opportunity. Stay tunned for our final results!
Lots of productivity today. Put together the second box for one part of the slide. Modified the slope on our ramp, put the cross sections in, and the outside fitted. Used a lot of hot glue and bracers to make sure everything is sturdy. We now have all four pieces for our project, and the finishing touches will be well on their way soon.
Cross sections for the ramp.
Getting the inside of the slide ready to put a bottom on for next time.
