Final Fabrication Reflections
Week 13: 22-26/10/18
The whole fabrication process has been super hectic, stressful and challenging. Here is what I learnt:
1) You got to plan for the unplanned
While I did a pretty thorough construction plan and basic timetable, things still went wrong which ended up eating more time.
Things take time
Before heading into final construction, I had completely forgotten about the prototyping phase for construction. While I had done cardboard mock-ups, I still had to do iterations on how that would translate into the final materials. So, although I had planned to leave a month for final fabrication, the prototyping phase took up about 3 weeks of that. Thus, in the end I was left with about 1 week for final fabrication. At the time, I thought that would be just enough time, now I realise that this was not enough time at all because things took longer than I expected.
On top of that, my design has a lot of complex components and I didnât fully realise was how long each component would take. Especially regarding the mass production of the blocks. Making a few blocks was a very quick process, however, making about 120 was a very long process. And upon reflection, to save time I couldâve worked a bit smarter. E.g. instead of cutting up all the blocks and then gluing them, I couldâve glued the arcs all together and then cut them up once they had dried.
Thus, in future, Iâve should slightly over-estimate how long each element takes so that I leave sufficient time for each.
Planning a Plan B is important
Before going into construction, I didnât create a plan B. So, when things got behind, I had to think on the spot about what I should prioritise next. Upon reflection, as a result, I may not have made the most informed decision compared to if I had considered this beforehand. For example, when I was running out of time near the end of the week, I pushed the first coat of stain to Friday afternoon. Now, I realise I should have prioritised the functionality of the design over the aesthetic, and I could have left the staining till Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning. Â Had I planned for this earlier, this would have bought me 2 more hours in the 3D lab to really work on the slider mechanism.
Thus next time, I should make a contingency plan of some sort as well as fully prioritise what is necessary to fulfilling the purpose. Which leads ontoâŠ..
2) Going back to the purpose.
Amidst the whole process of sorting out the fabrication, it was easy to lose sight of the overall purpose of the project. Thus, it was a matter or prioritising the different agents of necessities i.e. functionality vs. aesthetics. I donât think I did this particularly well because I was rushed and this was reflected in the overall design of the kinetic table.
Upon reflection, there were some aspects of the design that were more complicated than they needed to be. For example, I couldâve fulfilled my purpose in a much simpler way by just creating a rectangular table. While this wouldnât have necessarily fulfilled my aesthetic desire, in the end I would have more easily gotten a working prototype that people could interact with. Â
This then leads ontoâŠ.
3) Keep it Simple Stupid
Throughout this process, I had to continually consider how I could simplify the design so that it could still achieve the same outcome but in a more efficient way. From this, I was reminded that the first idea generally is not the best idea and that there are other ways to do it. For example, with the sliders, I realised that I didnât need to use a dowel to support the slider, but I could instead just double the wooden insert leftover from cutting the base board
4) Two is better than One
So many of my friends were so kind and helped me out with my project where they could. This meant so much and really sped up the process. While I have really enjoyed working by myself this semester regarding the idea development and prototyping phase, for the fabrication, I really struggled to do everything by myself.
Shout out to Olivia, Carol, Andrew, Vaani and Sheena. You guys are the best :)
Overall, this has been a rich (and extremely stressful!) learning experience.














