There were lots of ideas being thrown around, and I eventually chose "firearms and war" as my theme, for my brother was really into firearms and guns, and in result I knew a decent bit about how they worked and looked.  That entailed guns, rifles, bombs, cannons, tanks, army gear, anything that had to do with fighting in a war.  I began with my project using OnShape, a CAD (Computer-Aided Design) application that Mr. Daab had the class use, and I started with the bishop, for I knew exactly what to do for the bishop.  It was to make the head of it a grenade instead of that hat with a slit.  And using an open-source website called Thingiverse, I found a simple grenade model, downloaded its .stl file, and imported it into my OnShape document (documents in OnShape are like PowerPoints in Microsoft PowerPoint).  This is when I ran into a problem, though, because I didn't know how to import .stl files into my own "part studios" (documents have sub-sections, one type of which are "part studios", where 3D models can be edited).

I later found out that I could've used the "Derived" tool to copy a model from the .stl file into my target part studio, but at that moment, I decided to restart by switching paths, choosing a "ruins and destruction" theme instead.  This time, I would stick to my theme in making the whole chess set.

I started with the pawn, which had a "missing" head: instead there was a "metal framework" of where the head used to be.  This was basically how my theme worked, where all of the chess pieces had gotten partially "destroyed", and what remains of it are the metal structuring where the rest of the "body" used to be.

It was a Friday, and that was when I just finished my last piece of the project (the king).  Then, Mr. Daab (my engineering teacher) just announced at the end of class that he'll extend the due date until the coming Sunday for people who were doing a classical set of chess pieces, and until next Friday for people who were doing the creative set.

I was angry and relieved at the same time.

The main takeaway?

I had spent so much extra time on small details that will most likely be overlooked compared to features that would look much cooler.  Basically, I spend too much time on little details in a perfectionist way, and next time, I won't do that...hopefully.