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Many of my favorite classes in high school were my tech classes, specifically wood class.
Adirondack Chair (Version 1) - Our class was assigned a project to create an Adirondack chair from a template given by our teacher. This class was mainly an introductory class to familiarize ourselves with the equipment in the shop. Our entire class built the chairs out of white oak, and as individuals and the final product came out looking like this:
If you notice the picture, it is taken indoors. A major flaw of these chairs is the material. White oak or red oak are not very weather resistant, and within the first full year of being outside, the chair began to rot, even after we put the proper coating of weather proofing and clear coat on it. These chairs need to be sanded and stained year after year for them to keep over long periods, either that or they become destined to be indoor chairs.
Adirondack Chair (Version 2) - My friend Andy and I decided to take the next level of wood class the following year. We both really enjoyed making Adirondack chairs the previous year, however we both noticed our fathers complaining about their Father's Day presents rotting. We also noticed that at the local supermarket, Wegmans, were selling un-stained low quality (in our eyes) Adirondack chairs for about $300. We saw our class as a huge business opportunity. We decided to mass produce 7 Adirondack chairs to sell to family and friends to try and make some money off of our Senior year of highschool.
We began the design process by searching bookstores for a good design template for Adirondack chairs. We found very few, and decided to take the matters into our own hands and develop our own template. Another problem that we had to overcome was picking the best material. After research, we concluded that although pricier, cypress, a swamp wood was the best type of wood to go with for minimal maintenance. Once we had a design down, as well as a material, it was time to build.
Or so we thought. When we began to order the wood and draw out the cuts on the pieces of wood to minimize waste, we realized that it was necessary to create "fixtures" that would allow us to quickly develop parts in a mass production/assembly line fashion. We also had to bend wood to form, and this was done by developing a special fixture that steamed wood by funneling steam from a hot water plate into a PVC tube with a piece of wood in it that could then slowly placed into a clamp. The chairs were eventually all put together, sanded and stained with a wood finish.
Eventually, all seven chairs were built and sold, an "A" grade was received, and memories were created. Here is a sideshow of the finished product. Andy and I plan on eventually doing this wood designing on the side.
Guitar Cabinet - One major project that I worked on the side, along with the Adirondack chair (Version 1) was a cabinet to hold my trophies, and music books. My room began to become very cluttered with trophies from sports and academics, and I wanted a prominent way to display my proud achievements. At the time (and still currently) I was extremely into music and guitars. I felt that there could be no better tribute to this than creating a cabinent with an old electric guitar permanently attached to this.
To create this, I decided upon a depth for the cabinet by using the size of my biggest music books. I also wanted enough space to hang guitars off of the sides underneath the storage section. I drew out a couple drawings, and eventually got approval from my teacher to go ahead and start. I chose red oak for a material, as I feels it gives a great look for a great price. The final product ended up looking very good, and still is in my room at my parents house prominently holding its function showing my achievements and passion for music.
Wood Clip Board - Another project that I developed in wood class was a clipboard made with scrap wood. Nearing the end of the year, my teacher asked me to do something with the left over wood from various projects. I decided a nice clipboard with our school's logo would be a very nice and useful item that I could make. I spec'd it out so it would fit an 8" x 11" piece of paper, along with finger tip grips along the sides. I still use this clipboard to this day, and it has seen many a piece of engineering paper upon it.
Scroll Saw Designs - In my spare time, I love to cut designs out of wood with a scroll saw. I fell in love with this at my cousin's house where they had a scroll saw, and begged my parents to buy me one for christmas. So for my christmas gift of my freshman year of highschool I received one gift, and it was a basic $169 Craftsman scroll saw. To make something with this scroll saw, all I had to do was find a pattern that I like, cut a piece of wood to size, and adhere the design to the wood. Here are some of the designs and carvings that I developed. They range from puzzles to a bedside cross.
Egg-Drop - For my 12th grade science project, we were given the task of creating a design that was successful in protecting an egg from a multiple 20 foot drops. To attack this problem, I first did some general research on the impacts that eggs can take. With this information in mind, I figured out how much force would be present acting on the egg upon impact. We had a few constraints on this project, as the egg protector could only be made from toothpicks and Elmer's glue.
To make a successful design, I built off of what I learned in my middle school's egg-drop, and that was to have a crush zone to absorb the impact from the fall, as well as some sort of parachute design to maximize air drag and slow the egg protector down. What I eventually developed was an umbrella sized protector, that looked like a mushroom. The top slowed down the egg enough to help minimize impact forces, while the shaft part of the structure was hollow, and the egg could move up and down it like an elevator. The egg was put into a special elevator/holder mechanism, that could travel up and down the shaft, and slowly (hopefully) oscillate during the impact, reducing the force.
My design ended up doing fairly well, surviving 5 impacts, but this was only enough to take 2nd place, as another design beat mine out with 7 drops.
Guitar/Music Studio - All throughout highschool, my dad and I would consistently play music together in our basement, and always talked about eventually getting some sort of recording set up started. In the 12th grade, my dad finally purchased a recording system for our basement. This system consisted of a new computer, and a recording "box", along with software. All of these things were nice and awesome, but there was no ideal place to put them. I decided to unleash the inner designer within me to create something mobile to hold all of this.
What I did was take an old fax machine holder, which was to become the base of my mobile studio. This fax machine holder was a solid base as it was about a 3'x3'x3' cube with wheels on it. I then added height to it by placing 4 columns where the recording box could go. Then, I placed a piece of plywood on top to hold a monitor and speakers. From there, I then created a keyboard and mouse mount that was ergonomical for both sitting and standing while editing. On top of this, I developed a wire control system to keep all of the wires nicely contained via an old PVC pipe. Here is the mobile music command center in action:
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