I've begun afternoon consultations for my Secondary TWO students.
Below you'll see how I facilitated 2N1 Angeline Salt & Pepper Storage over a time period of 30 minutes or so. Angeline final concept (not shown), was a skinny (side-view) 'hour-glass' shaped holder made of acrylic, and wood at the top and bottom as support. However there were difficulties in working out how to develop the parts to dispense Salt or Pepper, for re-fill and to able to keep all the little parts intact all the time.
Page 1:
My first task was to help Angeline understand different possible ways to construct the 'hour-glass' concept. She already had it worked out from a series of idea generation and refinement rounds to come out with the two flat 'hour-glass' panels cut out from a single acrylic sheet and covered using a formed acrylic strips at both open-ended sides.
At Secondary TWO, I would expect she might have some technical difficulties in actually making it work. So in the example above, I started clarifying how the base of the holder may be constructed from a single piece of Jelutong wood, which in turn depends on the width of the 'hour-glass' design. And put a note for her that we need to consult the Workshop Instructors to see if 'cutting' a rectangular slot in the wood is possible.
We also discussed that the allowance left after 'cutting' from the slot to the edge of the wood cannot be too thin as that would make the stucture weak. We need to work out the width of the 'hour-glass first'.
Page 2:
Forming the curved acrylic strip shape to fit the sides of the 'hour-glass' needs to be planned carefully. Making use of Angeline's original process to construct the 'hour-glass' the process was further refined including other possible ways to construct it. Throughout page 2, the emphasis is on how formers (a male and a female) could be used to create the exact curve she needs for both sides of the 'hour-glass'.
When you see #1, #2, and so on in page 2, those were referring to the steps I drew on paper as I described how each process can be completed to create the formers needed, and at the same time aims to cut-out the 'hour-glass' shaped design - all in a single process.
It is important to make sure that the shape of the former has exactly the same curvature on both ends on the 'hour-glass' shape. That is why the wooden former and the acrylic 'hour-glass' shape is cut together. Both the former wood and acrylic can be secured together using double-sided tape.
Page 3:
Finally we come to the part to talk about Salt or Pepper dispensing and how to go about making that. The simplest soluton is to find some sort of 'plug' which can be found in some medication bottles, e.g. the PiPa Gao bottle (in Chinese 枇杷膏). That can go to the bottom part. The top part is another similar acrylic strip with tiny drilled holes for 'dispensing'.
Measuring the diameter of the 'plug' will lead you to the width of the bottom 'plug' acrylic strip. After explaining the rationales about giving allowances from the drilled hole to the edge of the acrylic, the width of the bottom 'plug' acrylic strip is quickly worked out.
The rest of the dimenions on the hour-glass body is left to Angeline to work out on her own.
Conclusion:
That was one happy successful consultation session. Angeline was able to show her understanding from the discussion and this is possible because she had already been working on the processes of making for some time. A lot of thoughts were evident through her design journal especially at the refinement phase. The details of measurements and how a single acrylic sheet could be subdivided to maximize material usage, etc is impressive for a 13 year old.
My job was to help her refine and shorten the processes by introducing alternative techniques and approaches that she might not have thought of. Sometimes radically changing the processes.
In the end, Angeline still got to make a decision on the final processes.
Those were my drawings all right... but Angeline would need to bring that home, recall our discussions and come out of her own version.
That's quite a challenge. But I believe with Angeline's keen attitude, the Hour-Glass Salt & Pepper Holder will surely turn out just as designed.
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