Saturday, February 22, 2014

Ramya Mallya - Community Engagement


The non-profit I chose was the Animal Rescue League: www.animalrescue.org

The organization gives shelter to animals without a home, and helps find homes for them.
They also have programs to educate the community about pet care.

ARL raises funds and resources from the public in the following ways:
- Selling Membership
- Memorials
- Gifts in kind
- Goodsearch.com
- Online donations

My BIG idea was based on the way cats curl and rub themselves around people's legs. The idea is to have a large model of a kitten curled up around, near the top of the Cathedral of learning. 
The 'awww' factor of kittens would cheer people up, and make them want to adopt a cat.





My scaled down idea was based on two things: 
1. Dogs chase cars
2. Clifford the big red dog - I remember reading this as a child. When his owner adopted him, Clifford was abnormally small and sick, and nobody expected him to live. But then with all the love that he received from his family, he kept growing until he was over 25 feet tall.

The idea is have a projection chase after cars down the Fort Pitt tunnel. The projection could appear as shadows on the tunnel walls. The dog starts off as a puppy and keeps growing as it chases the car down the tunnel. By the time it reaches the end of the tunnel, it is pretty big.



Friday, February 21, 2014

Ramya - A5: Take a leak

CASE 1: METAL

Ideation and prototyping




Attempt #1: Aluminium






Oops.... Too brittle. 

Attempt #2 : Steel





Pinned down those edges with glue and rivets. Taped them together till the glue set.




CASE 2: PLASTIC

Ideation and Prototyping




Process


Overlapped the edges and glued it together, and used tape to hold the edges together. 
Then clamped it with a strip of wood to press down on the glued edge.



Folding over and gluing the edges was harder than I thought, as the plastic kept slipping.
Had to clamp it in various ways to hold it down




Experimented with clamping. Used pieces of wood to press the glued strips together.


Realized that there were big holes where the strips didn't come together.
Fought with a caulking gun for a while, and then decided to waterproof from inside.
Cut open several small plastic bags and stuck them together to form a waterproof layer. 
Stuck this inside the cylinder. It wasn't pretty, but it worked!







CASE 3: WOOD

Ideation

Decided to make an inverted box with a shelf, so that the Arduino would be raised above the ground. 
This would add some extra protection if placed in a tray of water.


Used table saw to cut out the wood


And wood glue to stick all the pieces together




Then sprayed it with NeverWet for a waterproof exterior

Assignment 5: Waterproof

Wood waterproof Sealing. After turning this, and then sending the largest twist bit in stock through the piece to create a hole, the next step was applying polyurethane to the inside to make a water tight seal. I created a tool from a stick and cotton swab from a shirt which fit into the hole. This would allow for the poly to be applied to the wood while it was turning, evenly distributing the coating. I left the lathe on during drying, and applied a second coat after 2 hours.




By the end, I had this. The edgest could have been a little cleaner, but the wood got sanded while on the lathe as well down to 400ish grit. Nice and smooth


After the wood, I worked with a piece of metal and forged it on the english wheel. It began by hammering a circular piece of metal which was cut out of a sheet by the bandsaw. The circular metal was hammered with a plastic mallet against a tool I made with a curved top. This wood tool was placed in the vice during early forging. It was smoothed out later by the wheel. 

The result


As for the plastic, I took a plastic sheet and folded it into a cone shape. I then applied heat from a heat gun onto the meeting edges after cutting it out. I squeezed the hot gooey edges together using a set of rubber gloves. The finish left a textured fused edge, and ended up looking like a holster. After a few fails, I eventually got a water tight seal.