MS+S2+Elective+-+Tom

=Design Folder - Tom=

Unit Question
How do people need to organize themselves, and why do different people have to organize themselves differently.

The U.Q is relevant to me because sometimes at home, I leave my homework everywhere although I can always find it. It might be better for me to keep my workspace more organized. My parents hate it when my stuff is lying around everywhere.

Investigation
Evidence of my problem

This might not look very messy, but if you look where the table meets the wall, I have a lot of small things lying around. It might be good to make a small pencil holder or something to put the small stuff in.

Guiding questions
We have a semester for this unit so i think it is more than enough. I think that I am just doing a long pencil holder and mini cubbies along the table where th desk meets the wall. I will be able to put pencils and other small things into the mini cubbies and pencil holders. I need wood, glue and some type of small screw. I think these materials are all available. Yes, i have seen all the tools I need in the D.T room. I will of course need a computer to make my model on sketch up, I have a computer at home and in the Lab there are computers so that will be no problem. I will try and use the least wood as possible although I want it to be out of wood. While painting I will not use a lot of paint, it will be a lighter color but I like light green. It will hold Cd's, pencils, pens, a cable or two and a few small books( I have measured the dimensions of the book). I think it should be strong enough. Yes, It might contain some nails or screws but it looks very safe to me.
 * Do I have the time available to build it?
 * How will the product help me, how can I make it successful?
 * Are the materials available?
 * Do I have the tools available?
 * Is my product going to be Eco friendly?
 * Will it be strong enough?
 * Will it be safe enough to use?

Design Brief
I have to be organized everyday if possible. I will be creating a product, similar to a mini shelf or cubbies that fit onto my desk. I will be able to put any kind of small useful rubbish like used pencils, compasses, pencil cases and other small things into it. It will be useful because I can keep my desk clean and organized and put things into it. I will see it every time I do my homework because it's right in front of me.

Design Specification

 * Must have a height of 17cm, a width of 1m, and a length of 16cm
 * has to be safe to use
 * Has to be constructed in the time I have
 * Should be made out of pine because it's soft wood or plywood which is strong
 * Should be stable and balanced
 * Should have a color I like, light green
 * Must be able to hold enough things to keep the desk organized
 * wood can't be thicker than 2cm because else it can't hold enough stuff
 * Shouldn't be heavy because it might be moved sometimes
 * Has to be on my skill level
 * Has to fit on about a half of my desk
 * what materials does it need
 * what type of materials

Ideas/ Inspiration
This is a small cupboard which I like, I would want my final product to look similar to this cupboard. It has a lot of space to put things in it and I also have a lot of stuff to put into my desk organizer, it is a good example of what I want mine to look like.

This desk organizer is made out of cherry wood. It has to slots and is specially for on desks.I like this design because it is simple, I want my design to look simple and easy to make. It also has a lot of space to put things in. Although this is more for folders and you would put the folders in vertically, I want to have a wide and horizontal design. Paper and folders would be put in horizontally.

Design 1
This design fits my dimensions. It can be made out of pine, and is on a good skill level. It is large enough to hold things, though also small enough to fit on my desk. I will make it so that it is stable and balanced, and strong enough for the things it will have to carry. This product will not use a lot of wood, and still be very helpful.

Design 2
This design has a lot of smaller sections, this will be handy to store things in from different subjects or things. It can also be made out of pine although it will not be painted then because of the nice texture pine has. it fits perfectly with my dimensions, it will be strong enough to hold smaller things and will lean against a wall and not use that much wood.

Design 3 The Chosen Design This is my favorite, it does not use a lot of materials, such as wood. The little shelf on the right looks a little unstable. I will apply the color green to it and use plywood, i might use pine for some part and not paint the pine, it will give a nice color combination. The dimensions fit exactly like all the others, and the style looks good. I have already found and measured enough things that can fit onto the small shelves.

Planning




=== This is the design I chose because it is appropriate for all my design specifications. It fits my dimensions perfectly and is strong enough for the things it will have to hold. I will use 1/2" thick plywood for the inside because it is strong. Other materials that I will be using are screws (they're stronger than nails), and glue to make the parts that are screwed together even stronger. One of the week points will be on the lower right side of my shelf, it is not very strong but will not have to carry a lot. It will only have to carry some paper. This is why I chose this design. ===


 * Tools that I will need are:
 * saws
 * sanding paper or the sanding machine
 * screw drivers to screw parts to each other
 * measuring tape to measure the dimensions
 * and pencils to mark the spots measured.


 * To paint:
 * a brush of course
 * paint that is water resistant.

I have measured most objects on my desk and made sure they all fit on the little shelf. A few of the objects are pieces of paper, pencils, erasers, pens, a compass, cd's, cables small booklets, and a pocket knife. these all fit onto the little parts of my shelf. This design is stable and strong enough to hold these type of things. I have most of my useful small objects and things on the back of my desk, i have measured the dimensions of my table and the area all the small objects take up and found the right dimensions, width= 1m length= 16 cm and height= 16cm. this is about the area of what all the small objects take up. My product does not only fit on my desk, but also in other parts of my room. In case I need to remove my desk for some reason I can still put the shelf in other places. The design that I chose is in my case the most suitable for what it will be used for.

19. April. 2012
Today, I made a lot of progress. I sanded all my smaller peaces, and my two large peaces are glued together and drying right now.I had one minor problem with the glueing, the bar clamps fell onto their sides a few times, making it difficult to glue. I feel happy about today because I made a lot of progress, I can finally screw them together. It was fun.

23. April. 2012
My top and bottom have dried and I was now able to sand them. I have glued the two sides, top, and bottom together. The outer part of the shelf is now drying and next I will glue together the inside. I had a minor confusion with the bar clamps while glueing the outer frame together, but I fixed it before anything happened. After today I am happy to have made a lot of progress, I hope i will be able to work like this every class.



25. April. 2012
Today, I have sanded my outer frame. it is glued together and I was able to use the sanding machine on it. I have also been able to glue together one of the smaller inner shelves. I had fixed one of the bar clamps wrong while glueing, but realized it at the end of class. I am proud of the progress I have made in the first three classes of creating the project. I hope that I will be able to make a lot of progress in the next few classes.

01. May. 2012
I had small problem, when I drilled the screws into my outer piece, the screws were not smoothly into it. So Today, I drilled them out and had to pre drill a small indent to keep it smooth, I used a special drill bit. Then I drilled them back in. I had an injury on my hand and it took a little longer. I was actually wanting to paint but I did not have the chance to because of the re-drilling. I was still happy to be able to have corrected the mistake.

03. May. 2012
====Today, I had the first inner piece of my shelf sanded. I also sanded my larger outer piece a bit on the inside. The main thing was, thatI had my last inner piece glued together, due to its shape it was hard to clamp it together, it always slid apart because I was struggling to to put the clamp together. At the end I had it glued together well. I am happy of the progress I made today, I only have to glue the three pieces together, and paint it.====

07. May. 2012
Today I sanded my last inner piece. I was happy to have done that because Now I can get started on painting. Luckily I had enough time to get started on a coat of white on my large outer piece. I also drilled screws into my inner piece, because of strength issues. Luckily after that it was strong enough. I am happy of my work so far because I only have to paint and screw it together.

09. May. 2012
Yes... I finally got all three pieces painted, with a white base color. It was hard to paint them sometimes because I had to turn them around while they were still wet. I now only have to paint them green and screw the whole thing together. I am happy that I have been able to paint all of it in one day, Now I just have to let it dry. Also till the end of the year there are only a few classes left, and I am happy to have done most of my work already.

13. May. 2012
I have started to paint my pieces with the final layer, green. I have finished my smallest pieces and am almost done with my second piece. After that I only need to put it together. I am happy that I am getting closer and closer to getting done. I had one small problem, I had to mix together colors to get the one I wanted. There was only one dark green so I had to mix it with yellow and white to get a light neon kind of green. I am happy of todays progress.

15. May. 2012
I have finished all my painting, I only had to finish my last larger piece, the outer piece. I am happy of today's progress because I only have to screw the things together, If I'm lucky I could be finished by next class. I had a small problem with my paint, it was gone! So I had to mix everything together again.

17. May. 2012
Finished! Today I had to only put the smaller pieces into the larger piece. I simply screwed them into the large piece but I pre drilled them off by 2 mm's. So I used the pudding to close it up and just drilled the screws back in. I am really happy that I'm finished.

[[image:aisd-dt/front_view_Tom.jpg width="400" height="300"]]
Here is a front view of my finished project, I have three main parts, the outer piece and the inner left and right pieces. I like my finished project, it looks very similar to my design although I changed to the two white lines instead of just green. I changed it because I thought it would look a little interesting, and it does.

In some cases I drilled the screws in to far, it was not a mistake to me but just something I can be more careful on. In the places that the screws went in far I used a mixture of glue and sawdust to fill it up, after it dried I painted over it. To me it looks kind of cool, although it destroys half a cm of the smooth texture.

These are my two inner parts, I wanted to give the a strange and interesting design. The one on the right is the one I like most, it has an abstract look to it and I thought it would have some strength issues, but it was fine after drilling some screws into it. the one on the right is going to be used to hold some heavier and larger things. I am very happy of what I have done in total, especially with my design.

Q&A
Is my project strong enough to hold the amount of things I have on a desk? Yes, I have put some things on it and have found out that my project is strong enough to hold the things I need it to hold.

Is my project appealing, neat and interesting? To me my project has an appealing color and design, I like the slight unevenness of the paint and the abstract design of it. It has a neat and interesting effect to me, I think I made it nicely and interesting because of its visual appealing.

How will I use my project? I will put it on my desk and put all the small things like erasers and rulers in it, also I could put some paper in it so when I need some scrap paper I have it. Also I can use it anywhere else in my room because it is so light. I will definitely use it because I have a lot of junk or small stuff in my room.

Does the project meet the personal expectations? The project does what it has to do, it is strong enough to hold smaller stuff and has a pleasing color and nice texture. So yes it meets my personal expectations and I like it a lot. part of what I wanted on my project was a nice color that fits to a wooden desk, and a blue wall.

Does it answer the UQ? the unit question was that we had to create something that helps us get organized. I am an organized person, but this project has helped me even more to get organized more. I can put all my things onto a small shelf, and I won't have a huge mess on my working desk in my room. I can put my small pencil holder in the middle, the tape into the small shelf on the right, paper can go under the shelf on the left, and the rulers and paper clips can go on top of the project. for all the other small stuff on my desk I can just put it in the shelf.

BULLET POINTS
Pro Con
 * It has an appealing color
 * I like the design
 * the screws have been drilled in nicely
 * the edge banding has been done well, it covers up the whole front and looks good
 * The pudding looks quite good and disguises the deep hole of the screw
 * The product is strong enough to hold the stuff it needs to
 * The edges that were sanded reveal some parts of the other layer
 * the painting could be a little neater, where the white meets the green
 * the screws coud be drilled a bit nicer
 * the pieces could be glued a bit neater
 * the project could be furnished to give it a nice shine
 * In general the final project could be a little smaller, the dimensions looked a little nicer on sketch up

Planning evaluation
During the plannig, I had a lot to do, working with sketch up was one of the most common things during the planning. the designs on sketch up were sometimes ok and sometimes bad. these are the observations I made about my designs from the planning fase.
 * my plans were mostly complicated and a little confusing to myself
 * I had trouble with the components and all at the beginning
 * the plans had the same dimensions
 * I had problems at first with using sketch up, it confused me
 * there was a lot of work which did not say a lot to me, I managed though
 * the plans are similar