Wednesday… hump day… today held many important developments and iteration points in our projects, and was a long day of hard work and play. In many weeks, Wednesday can be a “make it or break it” day, where we have the chance to test out designs and structures we spent the beginning of the week working on. It is a turning point in energy levels and momentum, as well as in design and build strategy. Our bright tinkerers took the day in stride and put their all into these awesome projects!

Experimenting with magnets in a moment of break time.

At the beginning of the day, we jumped straight into our design sessions. Right off the bat, a big haul of 2x3s and plywood arrived and we briefly paused the morning to witness a (facilitated) “wood avalanche” off the truck and into our workshop! Our projects this week are so large that we’ve been absolutely blowing through wood in an unforeseen way – luckily we were able to replenish our stock today.

If you recall from previous blog posts, this week’s theme is “Shake It Up.” Each group has a sub-theme designed to create a project that will incorporate some form of shaking movement. In our builds, the mechanical engineering aspects can only come into play later on. Everyone has spent the first few days intensely building overall structures, and by the end of today we were able to see the fruits of our labour, as some of our more complex engineering designs come to light.

By the end of Wednesday, the dancing, shaking marionette group is almost completed with each individual body part. We have two each of arms and legs, which can bend at the limbs with hinge-joints, a huge torso shaped by a combination rectangle and trapezoid to emulate the shape of a human body, and a box head! Those tinkerers working on the limbs began to envision and create methods of attaching the limbs to the torso with rope and eye bolts. Each piece of the marionette is incredibly heavy, so it will be a challenge to navigate ensuring the strength of the torso to support the rest. Lastly, we began work on the top crossbeams, to which the ropes supporting each limb of the marionette will be attached via pulleys to then be controlled from the ground.

Tinkerers proud of their milkshake barrel.

Milkshake machine assembly line in progress!

The tinkering group working on the milkshake machine is making excellent headway. They spent the day attaching different sections which had previously been worked on separately, and the overall structure is truly beginning to take shape. The conveyor belt is complete, made of dowels and spinning PCV pipe. We are all very eager to see how they take the weight of the milkshake barrel, and to incorporate the spinning mechanisms to physically transport the milkshake through it’s assembly line to completion. Furthermore, the beginning of an awning is taking form, above the conveyor belt wall.

Our shake shack group is blowing our minds! The room they are building is on a grand scale, and both the outer and inner structures have been completed today. The inner piece is able to now fit inside the outer piece (keep in mind these are both upwards of 15ft in width, length, and height). We began to brainstorm and experiment with pulleys - the main mechanism that will facilitate the movement of the inner room to be a shaking space (almost comparable to an earthquake simulator).

Today we mixed things up during park/lunch time and went to the field nearby instead of the beach. Though it was a bit slippery, the grass made for much better soccer, frisbee, and football games than the sand!

After a good night’s rest tonight, we will be ready for the end-of-the-week final stretch on Thursday and Friday, and to showcase our creations!

Check out the rest of today’s photos on our Flickr page.

Shake It Up - Day 3 - Week 3 (SF Day Camp)