Lesson 6

Today, the LDRs and Bulbs were being prepared. (LDR stands for light dependant resistor). While this was happening, my nightlamp front was being decorated by myself using the pens. I coloured in the grooves such as the eyes and the hat to increase the aspect of aesthetics in my product. Today was also the last lesson for Miss Hurle so I would just like to say thanks for everything and best of luck. Next lesson, I aim to install the PCB on my nightlamp while being in the CBD.

Lesson 5

Today in the lesson, I first of all attached the three sections of my product to each other. This included the block outline to the base using blu-tack and the face to the main block using glue. This way it will not have a chance of moving when it is under the vacuum former. After putting it in the vacuum former, I was rather pleased with the results and for 10 minutes following, I progressed into cutting the outline out with scissors. This worked very well. I then drilled two holes of separate sizes into the side and front of my vacuum formed plastic shape. Next lesson, I will be ready to add the light sensor and the bulb!

Lesson 4

I am now nearly ready to use the vacuum former of which I was instructed how to use today. I first of all set about the task of making my base smaller and smoothing out the corners on my project. After this time, I was ready to proceed to the final stage of vacuum forming, however, it was too late to start this, so I will do this next lesson!

Lesson 3

Today in the lesson, I used the Boxford CNC router as planned, but it took slightly longer as anticipated, because of the fact that there was a cumbersome queue. To avoid wasting time, I decided to alter the depth of the drill bit so that I would save time when it was my turn. After it was my turn, I brainstormed some ideas for my product, and have decided to create a diagonal shape wall mountable night lamp.

Lesson 2

In the lesson today, I set about moulding my base to the requirements that I wanted. I did this by first marking out on the piece of wood that I wanted to cut, and then with a draft angle of 5 degrees on the disc sander, began to sand to the lines. This was very good, as I managed to get a sloped edge on the back of my product. Next lesson, I want to use the Boxford CNC Router to cut out my piece.

Lesson 1

Today, after the planning section of my product, I logged onto one of the computers and started to use 2-D design to design the front of my product. I decided to go with a happy clown idea, and by the end of the lesson, I had more or less perfected the design!

New Photos of Other Nightlight Products available on the market

Picture of My Chair (Final)

16.04.07

Here is the new projec starting. It is the nightlamp or nightlight. The project will last 6 weeks
Keep on this page for more updates.

Evaluation of My Flat Pack Chair Project

Evaluation of Flat Pack Chair Project
I have really enjoyed this project, and I can say without a doubt that I have learnt a number of new skills. An example of this is using the scroll saw properly by being now able to saw in a straight line. In my opinion, my chair is relatively aesthetically pleasing, although if you look closer, you can see and feel a few bumps/lumps where there has been an uneven coat of paint. I used two colours which were Electric Monza Blue and Cherry Red to improve the appearance of my chair. I think this has worked well, as I think the chair with one colour on its own would have looked slightly boring and would have been disliked by children because of this fact.
A negative point that I would comment on is the application of sanding sealer. Although I have produced a fabulous effect consisting of vibrant colours and a smooth finish, I found that the edges are slightly bare and you can see that the wood has absorbed the paint resulting in a relatively dull finish. This is an aspect of spraying MDF wood without any sealer as featured on my piece about wood finishes. I think that this is a result of paying more attention to the face of my pieces, and not my sides. Next time, I have learnt that I need to apply sealer all over my product, and not just the faces.
If I had more time with my product, I would have probably added vinyl to my product, which is always nice to see on a product, but I think that the stickers I attached to my product made up for the lack of vinyl, and hopefully I will not loose and marks for this.
To get ideas for my chair, I went into my kitchen and had a look at the chairs in there. I noticed that all my chairs are made from wood, but for added comfort they have cushions. I took of the cushion using the strings, and when I sat down I found it quite uncomfortable. This made me realise that when a child would sit on the chair, it would be very uncomfortable. This would follow with a lot of moaning to the child’s teacher or parent/guardian. To save this major annoyance, I used my mum’s sewing machine and a small amount of fabric to make a cushion using some of the textiles skills that I learnt in KS3.
One problem which occurred in my product was the fact that one of the sides snapped of. This was a problem, because it did not make it look as good. Thankfully, I managed to patch it up neatly using some stickers, so nobody I asked for feedback with noticed this. If I were to do this again, I would be much gentler with my product, because I do realise that the chairs are made from MDF, which is very fragile compared to soft wood or hard wood.
In conclusion, I have thoroughly enjoyed making my chair, and I am overall satisfied with the final outcome. From this project, I have acquired some new skills which I am proud of, and in my next project I feel that I will take these on board with me to strive to increase my marks and grades in resistant materials.

Lesson 8

Today in the lesson, I prepared to paint my chair. I will prefer to do this process at home, as it is in a more relaxed environment, but today in the lesson I added my final coat of sanding sealer. After spray painting my chair, I hope to add decorations such as stickers to improve the appearance of the chair, because after all it is for children.

Lesson 7

Today in the lesson, I added another coat of sanding sealer to my product. I am excited to spray paint my product and have decided to purchase the colour cherry red for my chair. Martin and I have decided to go with a two tone effect, and will share our different coloured paints so we both get two colours on our chairs. This will help, because I think children (the people who the chair is designed for) will prefer to sit on a multi coloured chair rather than a bland single coloured chair. Martin is buying paint of the colour electric Monza Blue.

Catch-Up Session 1

In the catch-up session today, I spent some time sanding down my work further in preparation for the afternoons lesson. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to add another coat of sanding sealer, but it didn’t matter, because I can just do that in today’s afternoon lesson anyway.

Lesson 5

After returning from my trip to Germany, I now need to catch up with the rest of the group, so I will be coming to some extra lunch time sessions in order to do this. I now have all my pieces, but today with my final plan in place, I set about working to cut down the big piece which was previously broken. With this in hand, I also applied 1 coat of sanding sealer to all my other pieces after sanding them down thoroughly. This will improve the finish and coat of my spray paint in the long run, and after examining samples, I can tell that is most certainly worth it.

Lesson 4

Today, I aqquired the new piece that I would have needed. It looks at lot stronger than the previous piece, and hopefully it will stand by me throughout the project. Unfortunately, because of the fact I did not bring my dt folder to school (going to Germany) I didn't have the correct plans to be able to create the new piece again. So today, I focused on creating all the slots and grooves in all the other pieces. I believe that I have done this relatively well, and next lesson I will need to make that piece perfect.
I will miss the next 2 lessons due to being away in Germany.

Lesson 3

Today was going reasonably well, bar the fact that something terrible happened. I had made some slots precisely, I then used the Mallet to hammer the pieces in and the sides split. This was very upsetting as I had spent a long time doing this. Immediately I tried to fix it, and after asking the teacher, suffered an even greater blow. The other side broke off aswell. This is very upsetting for me and I feel that I have not had a good lesson.
Next lesson I need to finish the grooves.

Lesson 2

Today, now that I have had the main resemblance of the project made (big wooden pieces) i began to make slots into the wood so that as a flat pack chair the pieces would slot together nicely. However, this process is not as easy as it first seems. First of all, you have to precisely mark out wherever you want to cut. So, I had to measure VERY precisely in order to be cutting in the correct place, or the chair would simply not fit together at the end. What I achieved today, were 2 precise cuts which were nicely sanded. I am very happy :)

Lesson 1

After designing the chair I recreated my design onto the 9 mm thick MDF wood. I began to cut out these pieces of wood, using the aid of the teacher and the high-powered cutter. I have now cut out a majority of my pieces of wood although the slots between which are going to be used to put the wood pieces together are not smooth enough for a final product, expecting a good grade. I began to use the file to smooth between the gaps. This is very annoying and quite tiresome. However, I stuck through this task and managed to get it to a reasonable quality.

Thing I would like to finish cutting out all my pieces of wood and actually get perfect finish on all of them this way, they will all be smooth and because the product is designed the children, they can't be rough. On Friday the 16th of February, and believe that I'm quite pleased with the progress and I think that I'm on course for completing the product to a good level. Hopefully in which I will receive a better grades than I did in my previous projects.

Soon, I will upload pictures of my carboy prototype. This is similar to the wooden prototype. I am currently producing.

New project

Recently in resistant materials our classes started a new resistant materials subjects topicin this topic we are making wooden chairs for children. After creating a cardboard model we advanced to creating wooden prototype's which were half the size of the real chair itself. Now as there started to begin practical work in this new project. I will also have to make a diary of my progress. In the following pos I will describe what I have done in each lesson.