Create & Improve
Day 1: Feb 21st
Plan:
Lab workday 1. Get approval for plan from Mr. Hussack. Start cutting out pieces for product. Start writing blog post #1.
Actual Work:
At the start of the class, we got approval from Mr. Hussack about our plan. Then we started creating the individual pieces of the final product.
First I made the bottom wooden board. I used Fusion 360 to make a sketch of the shape, then using the laser cutting machine and laser cut it out on a piece of 3mm wood.
We also cut out the four legs for the base using the square sticks of wood that the school already had.
After cutting the piece out, we found out that the size of 10*10 cm was too small to fit the 4 battery boxes.
So we then increased the dimensions of the cube from 10cm to 15cm to fit all four of the battery boxes.
Day 2: Feb 23rd
Plan:
Lab workday 2. Continue testing and adjusting of and finalize materials and pieces. Start assembling final product. Finish writing blog post #1. Start writing blog post #2.
Actual Work:
We continued making the pieces of the lamp. We first redesigned the bottom wood board by increasing its sides to 15 cm and cut it out using laser cutting. Then we cut out the 5 acrylic pieces. We then used hot glue to glue together the pieces of acrylic into a box shaped.
Mr. Hussack also asked us a question of how would the acrylic top stay on the wood board? If it wasn’t fixed then it could move around slid off. So then we decided to add wood boards at the height of 3cm on each side so that the acrylic lampshade could fit inside those wood boards. So using Fusion 360, I designed four long pieces that would fit on each side of the bottom board. However when we tried it on, the hot glue on the acrylic board increased the dimensions of the acrylic board. Therefore the wood pieces couldn’t fit the sides.
We spent almost all of the class working on the prototype and most of the blog writing work was done out of class.
Day 3: Feb 27th
Plan:
Lab workday 3. Seek feedback from Mr. Hussack or peers. Make adjustments and changes according to the feedback. Finish writing blog post #2. Start writing blog post #3.
Actual Work:
We came to class and found that the acrylic pieces were falling apart and the hot glue wasn’t strong enough to keep the pieces all together. So we tore them apart and glued them together using acrylic glue. We them left it there so that it would help them stay in place and stick together for around 15 minutes.
From the previous class, we found out that the side boards couldn’t fit the sides of the lampshade because the hot glue increased the length of the acrylic lampshade, I then redesigned the sides and increased its length and printed it again.
Then we started putting together the circuits. We first assembled them as one LED light was connected to one battery box that contained two batteries. Then Mr. Hussack gave us some feedback that we could potentially connect all the LED lights with electric wires and light all four of them up with one battery pack. So we took apart the electric wires we had and tried that idea. When we first used the old two-battery battery box, it would only light up one LED light. When we tried to light up two at a time, it wouldn’t work. Then we used a six-battery battery box, and it was tested that it would only light up 3 LED lights.
So it was proved that each LED light required two batteries. And since we didn’t have 4-battery battery boxes or 8-battery battery boxes, we had to use 4 of the 2-battery battery boxes. So then we went back to assembling one battery box with one LED light. And in that same class, using hot glue, we glued the four leg wood pieces onto the bottom of the wooden board.
We dedicated our class/lab time to creating our prototype so we spent our time outside of class writing our blog posts.
Day 4: March 1st
Plan:
Lab workday 4. Make any last small adjustments and finalize assembling for final product. Finish writing blog post #3 and #4. Review all blog posts and publish before next class.
Actual Work:
We assembled the final pieces together of the lamp. We first hot glued the battery boxes to the bottom of the wooden board and organized the electric wires.
Then I used hot glue to glue together the side boards that would help hold the acrylic together. In the previous class when I measured the sides and remade the side boards, I made two of the pieces too short (again). Only two of the four pieces were long enough. But I realized that I only actually needed two pieces to fix the acrylic lampshade. So them I glued the two pieces on two opposite sides using hot glue.
Then we made the last touches to the acrylic lampshade. The original plan was to put a layer of bubble wrap on the outside of acrylic box. But it was a little too transparent, so we decided to add a layer of paint in addition to the bubble wrap. So first we painted a layer of white paint on the outside of the acrylic.
But then when we went to go glue the bubble wrap on top of the undried paint, we realized that it wasn’t going to stick. There wasn’t enough time for us to wait for the paint to dry and then glue the bubble wrap. So we washed off the paint on the outside and decided to paint in the inside and glue the bubble wrap on the outside.
(Acrylic lampshade after washing)
Then we repainted the lampshade in the inside, and at the same time, we glued the bubble wrap on the outside.
These are the photos of our final prototype.
And I finished and reviewed all 4 of my blog posts before the show and tell class😬