Week 3 Term 4

On Tuesday this week I dug out the Styrofoam from my vacumn mould and moulded the second half of the bulb. On Wednesday I was sick but I came in after school and cut off the excess on my vacumn mould. I then trimmed it on a gerbil. Then I cleaned it. I managed to get a frosted look by cleaning it with thinner and a paper towel. I will do this for all the rest of the bulbs too now. I will also be 'sewing' the half bulbs together with more vacumn form material. On Friday I came in in the morning and posted photos and blog and calendar. In the rest of the day I will have practical. I will need to dig out the Styrofoam from my second mould and clean and trim it. I will then finish filing down my largest polystyrene bulb and vacumn form it, in two halves and clean and trim these. I will need to finish off my second half of the wood bulb as well, and vacumn form both halves (plus cleaning and trimming). And at some point I will have a video interview. And I'm coming in on Saturday..

Styrofoam bulb before filing

Vacumn formed half of bulb

Bulb just after vacumn forming

Parents comments

Mum: I really like the design and think the blog looks great. Can't wait to see the finished product. It looks like you've done a lot of hard work, and it's all very detailed. Well done!

Dad: Well I've had a look over the blog and there's heaps to it, isn't there. It really does look like a mini-engineering project with the software design, the circuit board, the cutting out of the metal box and the detailed blog notes. A million miles from what I had available at school as a subject when I went to college. It all looks very impressive and beyond me already! Keep it up - this looks like really practical stuff.

Interview Questions

-What have you enjoyed about DTM?
-What have you not enjoyed?
-Have you enjoyed the blogging over writing? Why?
-How do you think you have achieved this year?
-Do you like your final design?
-How different is your final design from what you imagined?

Week 2 Term 4

On Tuesday I cut out polystyrene circles to make a mould for the vacumn forming machine. I cut them out on the band saw, no problems. I then cut the top off to make it the right height and glued them together. They were left to set. On Wednesday we did blog and calendar. I posted two photos. I also worked on my checklist a little more and wrote down the questions for the video evaluation interview. On Friday I had more practical. I did my first vacumn forming on a half of my styrofoam bulb because the whole was too big to fit. A few pieces of vacumn forming material were wasted. I also cut out and stuck together more styrofoam circles for the bottom bulb.

Week 1 Term 4

On Tuesday this week I did blog and calendar. We were given the final checklist to work on and I could tick off most of the components. I have to finish off the rest. On Wednesday we had practical. I took my wood out of its clamps and Terry cut them out for me. I also drilled out holes in the top of my jewel brckets. I had a problem in that I broke three of them. I cut more on Friday but this was really annoying. On Friday I sanded my wood circles in the woodwork room. I also learnt abotu the wood lave which I will have to use next week.

Circle made into half a bulb on the wood lave

Circles cut and sanded, ready for the wood lave

HOLIDAYS 27 Sept-12 Oct

In the holidays I didn't really do anything technology related, except think about what I have to do when I get back to school, because I was away most of the time. I know that I don't have much time left and I have to work mega hard until the end of term. Next thing I have to do is working on cutting out the wood for my mould, for the vacumn form machine.

Squares cut out

Squares drawn on the wood before cutting out