WEEK 8

At the beginning of the week, I had a plan for my blog post. I thought "I am going to write my post during the weekend and I will explain in details what I did each day of the week...". Well, the weekend came and I have no idea what exactly I did during each day of the week. The good thing is that I remember the overall work I did (at least the most important things).

I feel exhausted. My days merge together, and the only thing I know, at the end of the day, is that I did a lot of work and that I am tired, but I also have a lot of things left to, and the deadlines are approaching...

The last month I've been stressed almost all the time. My perfectionism bothers me so much right now, because I am focusing on the smallest detail, everything has to be perfectly done. And this takes a lot of time. Especially when you are working under pressure, perfectionism is not your best friend…

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At the beginning of week 8, I applied primer to all the letters and small pieces of letters that we had laser cut so far. I got help from Nina for some of the parts. She was painting some of the side parts while I was applying primer to the front part of the first E. So far this is the most visually-appealing letter of all, but while painting I was wondering what exactly I thought when I suggested and designed the mandala for the letter. It took me 2 hours only to apply one layer of primer to all the cutouts in the letter.

When I applied the primer to the front side of the E, I painted the N, the S, the H, and the C with acrylic paint. Luckily the paint does not need four hours to dry, but I had to apply 3 layers of paint because it was not covering all the imperfections.

After the 4 hours for the primer were over, I painted the parts that had only a primer on it with acrylic paint.

I also made the leaves of the roses and glued them to the flowers. I also created another 3 mini roses, because I felt like the N will be too empty with just 7 flowers.

On Wednesday, Alex, Julia, Marije and I did a hardware test. By this time I had the first E, N, C, S, H, and the second E fully glued and painted with white acrylic paint. For the interaction test, I attached wires to the flowers and attached them to the servo motor. The test went well, and since my teammates wanted to go home, I decided to go home as well. I did not feel like staying at school alone again. Wednesday was the only day of the week that I stayed until 8 pm, instead of 10.

During the day we had a team meeting and that took from my time to work, but it was fine because we discussed important topics.

On Thursday and Friday, I stayed at school until the stuff 'kicked me out' because the university was closing.

What I did, was painting the maze in red paint. Nina helped me with applying the primer so, at least, I did not have to wait for it to dry. Julia also helped with painting the maze, but unfortunately, the first layer of paint looked terrible, after it dried, so I had to apply two more layers of red paint to small pieces for the maze. I rushed the painting a little bit, because I had a lot of wooden pieces, and only 15 minutes to apply the last layer of paint. (because the school was about to close). In the next morning, I had to fix the paint of only four or five pieces of the maze, so I did not spend that much time on this task again and I was able to continue with my other tasks.

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During week 8, I also drilled the holes in the bottom side of the letters and the pedestal. These holes are for the bolts. We want the letters to be detachable, so even though I hated the idea of drilling holes, it was a necessity. (The reason is not the action itself, I was just worried that I am going to make a mistake and ruin the whole installation. I think that my fear of failing and letting my team down caused my self-confidence being on a very LOW level)

I put all the letters on the pedestal and measured the space between the letters, marking the place where the letters will be. Marije did that first, but I found that the place is not equal between three of the letters, so I had to measure it again. Another reason for that is that I put the pedestals in the wrong order. Because of the middle connection part, the right order is very important. I am glad that I checked this, before starting drilling holes.

After Nina and I marked the places where the holes in the letters should be, I drilled the holes and after that, I measured and marked the place of the letters on the pedestal.

After that I drilled the holes in the pedestal and attached the letters to it with the bolts. Luckily I did not make a mistake and the letters look good on the pedestal.

Measuring everything multiple times usually is a waste of time, and it is caused by my uncertainty. I always want to be sure that everything will turn out perfectly in the end. This time I am glad that I measured everything a couple of times and checked the pedestals. If I hadn't done it, I would have messed up the whole installation...

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After having the letters drilled, I started with the next task - attaching the backsides to the letters.

When we did the interaction test, we had the chance to talk to Rene. I told him that I have a problem with attaching the hinges to the letters, and he suggested us to use magnets. I loved the idea. It sounded so much better than the hinges.

Nina and I cut small wood pieces to which we glued the magnets.

After we had the wooden pieces, I had to figure out the way of attaching the magnets with the wood to the letters, in a way that the opening the letter will actually be possible.

Gluing the magnets to the wooden pieces was more difficult than I expected. I glued my fingers three times. The magnets are strong and when I put them on the wood, the magnets were attracted by each other, leaving me with fingers covered in super glue.

I could not glue all the magnets to the letters in one day. But even though it was taking long, it worked perfectly in the end. The backsides of the letters are now perfectly attached to the letters, and can easily be removed if needed.

Unfortunately, the backside of the N was bent in a way that I could not attach it to the letter, so Marije had to laser cut another backside. After she did that, we painted the N with the primer and after a while with acrylic paint. After the paint was dried I was able to glue the magnets to it. The magnets on the D and the last E, are all that is left. After I glue these magnets, all the letters will have an easily attachable/detachable backside.

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During week 8, the interaction test and the user test were done, but I already wrote blog posts about these two things.

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After I drilled the holes in the pedestal and the letters. Nina and Julia helped me to put the pedestal together.

We had a little problem with some of the bolts, so I had to make the holes in the connection part bigger. Hopefully, after making some of the holes bigger, we will be able to put the pedestal together easier, when we go in front of de Broodbode. It took us one hour to put the pedestal together this time...

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The last thing I did during week 8 was gluing the transparent paper in the first E. I actually put the transparent paper in the evening E, as well, but then I had to take it out, becuae I realized that I haven't painted it with the blue paint, yet.

I also tested the transparent paper before gluing it. I was not sure if only one paper sheet will be enough, because the holes in the first E, are quite big, and I don't want the sendors inside the letter to be visible.

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With this, I think that my list of tasks for week 8, ended. I might have missed one or two small tasks, but the most important things I did, are included in this post Now that I am writing the blog post, the work seems not a lot and kind of easy. But the truth is that I've been working from 8:30 - 9 am until the school closes every single day of the week. I believe that this will happen to me again during week 9