Week 9 was CRAZY. I don't think I can describe it in a different way.
At the end of the week, I was not able to think straight. I was working from 8:30 until 10 pm every day and the time was still not enough to finish all the tasks that I had. I knew that there will be a moment like this when we were told that we are getting the wood for the letters a week later. But there's nothing that I, or any one of the team, could have done differently to prevent this, except, maybe, declining the sponsoring and buy the plywood.
I started the week with working on the magnets. When I went to school on Monday morning I was disappointed to find out that the magnets on a few of the letters are detached. Apparently, I haven't used enough glue. When I was gluing the other magnets I made sure that I will not have this problem anymore. Hopefully, they will be fine during the exhibition. I don't feel like fixing problems during the examination days or while people are interacting with the installation.
On Monday I also started working on the rest of the rose bush. I worked on it throughout the whole week, but I have to say that I am very happy with the final result.
Creating the leaves and the stems for the roses was not difficult, but it required a lot of time. Especially, if you want to make it look beautiful. And this is exactly what I wanted.
Arranging all the flowers and leaves on the letter took me approximately one day. Mainly because I had to create new and new things all the time because it was never enough. Juli was staying next to me and was constantly saying 'This is enough, we should keep working on the rest of the tasks...'. But when I was looking at the letter I did not see a finished letter, just a letter with flowers on it. I am sure that Juli was frustrated at this moment, because we did have a lot of work, and the stress levels at the end of the week were crazy high. But I was so looking forward to working on the design of the letters, and I wanted to make everything PERFECT.
I am really proud of the final result of the N and I hope that people will also like it.
Week 9 was mainly focused on the design of the letters. So I had a lot of work again. And sometimes, when your task takes you more time that you've planned for it, the stress level rises extremely. This happened with the whiteboard and the C.
Attaching the whiteboard foil to the C, was so difficult. The shape and the size of the letter became a problem when I started attaching the foil. Julia helped me a lot with it. It was definitely not a job for one person. She was holding the letter still while I was trying to glue the foil to it, and also when I was trying to take all the air out of it.
Turns out that painting the letter with primer and acrylic paint, was not a good decision.
I tested the foil on wood, but I did not test it on a piece of wood with a primer on it. The foil did not glue perfectly to the painted wood, but I think it is attached well enough (at least for now).
Another task for week 9 was cutting and attaching the fabric to the S. Juli also helped me with that. I was a bit afraid to cut the fabric because if it is not cut the right way, it might not fit the letter. But after the fabric was cut, attaching it to the letter was much easier and it looks much better.
Attaching the fabric was another problem. For now, I used tape to attach the fabric to the letter, but this was not an optimal solution. Juli and I tried to attach it with magnets, but they were not strong enough, so we ended up using safety pins instead.
I also drilled the remaining holes - The bottom sides of the D and the last E, and the holes in the pedestal. This time drilling the holes did not go very well, because when I tried to put the bolts in the D, one of the bolts was not fitting. Apparently, I drilled the hole 2 mm from the center and this did not allow the bolt to go in the hole, but I just made the hole bigger and with this, the problem was solved.
I also cut holes on the D, for the exits for the marble. I drilled a hole on the top of the letter, where the marble can be put in the maze, and a small square was cut out on the bottom of the letter for the exit of the maze.
Another big task for week 9 was the design on the Evening E. I painted the night sky and drew a skyline of Enschede on the bottom of the letter.
In order to choose the 3 colors of the night sky, I made a little test of the color palette. I waited for the paint o dry and then chose which colors to use.
I also had to glue the transparent paper to the E as well, to cover the holes.
I painted the music key and glued it to the Events E, with this the first E was absolutely done. I had to improve the white paint to almost all the letters as well, and make a magnet pen for the maze on the D
On Friday, after I had finished my tasks for the day, I helped Juli with painting the new QR codes.
We still have some small tasks left but it will be possible to finish them on Monday.