3D Design

As with any good Monday, we started our 3D rotation by destroying a few habits. One such was being at all precious with work.

To start with, we would put pen to paper to draw a squiggle. Or perhaps our house number. Or some random dots. Then we had to make it into something else.

Behold, a squiggly line turned into a structure that can support two people and a cat. 

Here we have my post code drawn into a bus shelter.

Then using the very piece of A1 paper we had been defacing with these designs, we had to build a structure to support a full water bottle 20cm off the ground.

I started with the idea to build sturdy stars out of the paper, however they would not achieve the full height, nor did I have enough paper. Having cut up quite a bit of my paper, I was left with few options and fewer ideas.

As a result I fell back on what I knew to be the strongest structure to support weight - a pillar. I then added rolls of paper to the edges for balance and support. My structure worked whichever way up you placed it.

It has been pointed out to me that I create the most sophisticated accidents they had ever seen, and I suppose the morning served as a learning curve as to embellishing those accidents; by all means people thought I had time to put much more thought into it.

After lunch, the task was set to build a structure out of cardboard that could support your weight. As the smaller members of the class started planning without preamble, there was an audible groan from anybody over 6 foot.

As I didn't wish to create another pillar, I went for the second strongest shape I could muster - the triangle. Rolling over the edges of the cardboard, I strengthened the corners with makeshift pillars. A second pice slotted into the form providing the third side. Stuck in place with two cross grain pieces of cardboard and I had a structure that could support my weight.

With 45 minutes left I decided that my piece should do far more than function to stand out. I spent a good while adding embellishments in the form of yet more cardboard.

 

At the end of the day, it supported my full weight off the ground, and then got put in the bin anyway, as there was no way I was taking that thing all the way home to throw it in the bin there.

It was an awful lot of fun to attack these tasks under my own steam, as these sorts of activities had only been used before now as 'team building exercises', which more often than not meant that I would be totally ignored for the entirety of the task.

Whilst I didn't learn any outright facts about he materials I was working with, I feel that I set a suitable tone with which to continue this week.