Semester 2 Scrolls

Week 15

5/30/19

I started to model my final project in Onshape, and the path that I originally had in mind did not look good at all. So I made it a bit simpler. A picture of what I have so far is to the right. I made it so that it's a staircase instead of a natural looking path. Also, I'll eventually model some stand things to hold it up. I also want to have two guard tower things just to add to the *~aesthetic~*. I'm hoping to get most of the design done this weekend.

Week 14

5/23/19

I have started to work on my final project. For it, I have to make something that uses at least two machines. I'm planning on making a castle thing on top of a floating path. It sounds weird, I know, but I've been doodling this castle since 6th grade and I've never done anything with it, so I wanted to use it for something. I haven't started modeling it yet, but my plan is to have the path be 3D printed and the castle be laser cut. I also want to have lights in the castle, so I'll be using three machines. I had a tough time imagining exactly what I want, so I modeled it out in clay. A picture of the model is to the left. The design might change depending on how it looks in Onshape.

Week 13

5/16/19

Today, I had to fix the laser. I was trying to engrave a piece of acrylic for a necklace that I'm making for my mom, but when it finished, the lines were jagged, blurry and just really messed up. At first I thought it was my design, or the way I set up the laser before cutting, however, that wasn't the problem. The first thing I did was clean the laser mirrors and lenses. They tend to get dirty easily, and it would make sense that some dust on the mirror would mess with the quality of a cut. As I was cleaning these, however, I noticed that the x-axis railing was also dirty. So, I decided to clean that as well, since all that dust could also mess with the laser. It ended up being more dirty than I originally thought (picture of q-tips used to the left), and the instruction manual recommends that the laser be cleaned once a week, which we have not been doing. So, in order to prevent this, I'm going to make a sign with a checklist saying whether or not the laser has been cleaned that week. However, even after all this, the laser still made the lines jagged. It turns out that the belt was loose, so we had to take off one of the side panels and re-tighten it. It was surprisingly easy, and once it was tightened, the lines came out clean. The necklace I'm making is a redesign of the tree one I made a while back. It has more branches that are also thicker to prevent them from turning to ash. A picture of the pieces is to the right.

Week 12

5/9/19

This week I was able to make two of my designs for Gravity Water. One was the design I described in Scroll 10, with the triangles and the water drop. The other was a cutout of Nepal. Both necklaces are pictured to the left and right. For the drop, I had to drill a hole through the side in order to attach the chain, however, it's really hard to do that on something that small. Thankfully, it worked, but I'm worried about how many will work when I start producing them for the fundraiser. The Nepal one is a lot easier. You just need to cut it out and sand it a little.

Week 11

5/2/19

We had our House Joust on Tuesday. Our design, which was some sort of stool, held up for a good 30 seconds before collapsing. The way we had attached the supports was kind of sloppy and the bottom was super unstable once someone actually sat on it. We ended up placing 3rd, and Lodestone won. Today, Senor Guzik came in and taught us how to make a simple shelf using a Craig Jig. It was pretty fun, however, as I'm writing this, I have realized that I left my shelf in the pod. A picture of Guzik teaching us is to the right.

Week 10

4/25/19

This week, we had our 3rd exhibition. As always, it was fun to see what everyone had made over the past couple of months. I showed my two posters (Goose and my mandala), my stickers, my shirt, and all the pins I made. Yes, I was able to make enough pins for Dynasty 1, 3, and 4. I still have to make some for Dynasty 2, but I'm currently taking a break from pin making. Our new House Joust was also introduced today. We have to make a chair entirely out of cardboard that can hold Miller. We can't use tape, glue, or anything else besides cardboard. We started working on our chair today, and a picture of me and Shakti working on the chair is to the left. I have also been working on a necklace for the Gravity Water fundraiser that Shakti is planning. It has triangles on the bottom to represent to ground, and a water droplet on the center. I'm hoping to have the drop hanging from a small chain, but I'm not sure how I would do that. A picture of the sketch on Onshape is to the right.

Week 9

4/18/19

Over the weekend I went camping to El Capitan with some other Dynasty 3 members. We left on Friday last week after school and arrived at 5:30. After we set up the tents, Olga, Sara, Naomi and I went to go try and find the bathrooms, but we decided to take a detour to the beach. Other people joined later and we ended up staying there for an hour before we actually went looking for the bathrooms. The next day we were supposed to go hiking, but nobody really wanted to, so we ended up spending all day down at the beach. The beach there is probably one of the most beautiful places that I have been to. The water is so clear, and there's this cool rock that you an climb up and look out over everything. The water was super cold, so we didn't spend too much time in it in the morning. We walked down to some tide pools and collected driftwood and rocks. I went back early and played volleyball on the beach with everyone who didn't go to the tide pools. When everyone else came back, they had brought some huge pieces of driftwood, so we set them up in a circle and marched around them like some sort of ritual. After some more volleyball, we went back up for sandwiches, then we went back down. By then, the water was warmer (not by much but your feet didn't instantly become numb), so Sara, Brandon, Joey and I spent a lot of time messing around in the ocean. There were a lot of dolphins and at one point one came within 10 feet from us. After another few hours, we went back up and hung out at the camp for the rest of the day. The last day, we mainly just packed up. We went down and sat on the rock at the beach for a little bit until we had to leave. Pictures from the trip are to the left. This trip was by far the best school trip I've been on.

Week 8

4/11/19

I have been working on D-Tech buttons for all of the dynasties. I am using the new logo that Miller made instead of the old one. The problem was that the background is transparent, so when it printed, the background was black. On top of that, the printer settings were being weird, so no matter what I did, it printed the design sideways, which wasted a lot of paper. I also had to do it on Inkscape instead of Photoshop because for some reason, Photoshop made the picture really pixelated. I got it all work though, and I printed 100 pins. During lunch, with the help of Mac and Shakti, I pressed all the pictures into the pins to actually make them.

Week 7

3/28/19

This week, there was a bomb threat on Monday. We had to stand on the grass outside Ventura College for 2 and a half hours. We skipped 4 classes, including D-Tech, and had a long lunch. However, I was able to make 3 stickers on Tuesday and Thursday. They're each a mandala that I made. We are also planning on making posters for each of the machines as well as for the D-Tech classrooms. I might design one but I don't have any ideas. A picture of the stickers I made are on the left.

Week 6

3/21/19

This week we were able to screen print our shirts. It took up all of class and lunch, so we didn't really do much else. We had to do a bunch of test prints before because the letters never came out right. Either some didn't print at all, or they would be really smeared. We kept trying different things, but we concluded that the print was just so big that it was going to be difficult no matter what we did. We also figured out that doing the design on the shirts was a lot easier than doing it on paper. The shirts came out better than the test papers, but there were still some errors. For example, on mine, half of the L is missing. I'm going to fill it in with fabric paint so that it looks better. Cleaning the screen is a pain. Because the hose is broken, it's really short, so it's hard to get the screen under the water properly. Also, there always seems to be an infinite amount of ink on the screen. It took forever to get it all off. We haven't gotten rid of the design yet since some people want to do more than just their D-Tech shirts. A picture of the finished shirts and some good test prints is to the right.

Week 5

3/14/19

This week we were finally able to make the screen and start screen printing. Over the weekend we made the screen at Sara's house. It was very complicated. We kept having to triple check what we were doing before we did it because we were so worried about messing it up. After we exposed it with the design for the first time, we thought that we would be able to see the design right away. So when we didn't see it, we thought we did it wrong and almost scraped the screen. However, we re-watched a section of the video and realized that we had to get the screen wet before we could actually see it. After we did that, we were able to see the design. We only did test prints this week using a test shirt and paper. The design worked really well. Some pictures from the process are to the left and right.

Week 4

3/7/19

This week we started to get ready to screen print. We are going to go over to Sara's house over the weekend to make the screen. The design that we are using is a drawing that Sophia made back when we were discussing what our logo would be. It was too complicated to use as our logo, so we are going to use it on our t-shirts. She drew it on paper, and I traced it on digital. A picture of it is to the left. Also, today we had the Entree for Employment. It's a dinner for juniors and seniors to meet and have dinner with professionals from different jobs. The sophomores help out by setting up and cleaning up, so I volunteered to help.

Week 3

2/28/19

I also didn't do too much this week. We currently don't have any transfer paper for the vinyl cutter, so we are unable to make stickers. I am working on a poster with one of my mandalas, but I haven't finished it yet. It won't just be black, it will be a combination of colors. I'm using blues and purples for it since that's what would go best in my room, where I'm hanging it. A picture of what I have so far is to the right. I have also been helping others use the big printer, since currently I know the most about it in our house.

Week 2

2/21/19

I didn't do too much this week since I had a project in another class that I needed to get done and I used my time in D-Tech to work on it. However, I was able to finish all of the safety tests for Propaganda. I also know what I want to do for novice. For the vinyl cutter, I want to make one of my mandalas. I haven't designed it yet, but I will probably try to make a few over the weekend. For the big printer, I wanted to print out the Captain Marvel poster with the cat Goose on it. I'm a huge Marvel nerd and I also love cats, so the poster is a purfect combo (haha get it). The poster is to the left.

Week 1

2/14/19

The freshmen had to make their application this week. They have to make something that is useful to a dragon using the supplies in the media center. A picture of the freshmen working is to the right. Most of Leviathan, including myself, help supervise and clean up during lunch. The freshmen leave a huge mess behind, and today we had to try and get play-do stains out of the carpet. Also, we only get half of the media center, but there is always at least 40 people trying to build at a time, so it can get really crowded, making it hard for anyone to move around. This is the first time that an application was done like this, and it's meant to give all the students an equal opportunity. However, I'm not sure if this worked. They all have access to the same stuff, but it's always so crowded, messy, and kind of confusing. Hopefully next year there will be a better solution. Leviathan also had a "movie day" today where we all watched the hour-long silk screening tutorial. We were able to watch it on the screen in the classroom and Sara brought a bunch of snacks. We hope to make our t-shirts soon.