Living Library: Let the Tinkering Begin!
Homework Machine discusses the conveyor belt plan.
What do you do when you realize you’ve built a door that’s bigger than your door frame for an upside down door? Which technologies for making 3D pop-up pages actually pop work best? How do you get a human-powered conveyor belt to run, or an on-off switch to start up a Homework Machine?
It was questions like these that brought us into our midweek deep tinkering dive today, as all three projects reached a point where campers moved from building structural elements to truly tinkering.
Over at the Homework Machine two complex components were being developed: a Conveyor Belt and a coin operated On/Off Lever.
Luc explains an idea for a switch box.
There was some rapid prototyping of a conveyor belt, while the On/Off Switch team focused really hard all day making minor adjustments and trying new things one after the other.
Brandon and Jack test out their belt idea small scale to see if it will work for the larger version on the HW Machine.
Measurements are taken for the large conveyor belt!
Then the belt itself must be crafted.
Tori, Sophia and Lucida construct the On/Off switch box.
Then the coin slot ramp is installed!
The Pop-Up Book project had two teams working on very different challenges. One group was making the Spine and Cover to support the giant pages we had made. This job was very important, because these supports need to keep us humans from getting crushed by giant pages, but also allowing the pages to swing open and shut! They got into a groove, of fastening supports, then testing, adding supports, then testing, until we were satisfied that we wouldn't be making a Death Book.
Lucas, Sora, Piper and Micah maneuver the book spine and covers around so they can fasten the other cover on at a weird angle.
Lucas, Sora and Vandor learned to be more thoughtful about placing support beams after they had to spend a long time sawing corners off.
The other team made a list of possible ways to connect plywood that would allow them to flex and bend the way that paper in pop-up books does. They then tested out 4 to 5 of the ideas to figure out which would be strong, flexible, and easy to assemble.
