BLOG ENTRY 3 (Week 5 & Practical 2)

Practical 2

For this practical, we actually had to do some pre-experiment work before going to the lab. It involved us doing a 150 words literature review on the different types and the composition of the cardboard.  

Here is the link to the article that we used: Corrugated Board Grades Explained: Different Types of Cardboard | GWP Group

From this article, I learnt how cardboards were made and their composition, making them quite strong and sturdy. Depending on their compositions, they are able to carry different weights as the corrugations in between the cardboard pieces are the thing that allows the cardboard to be more sturdy. Something else I learnt from the website is that its easier to cut cardboard along the ridges rather than against it, similar to cutting meat where its easier to cut along the grain rather than against it. This is important as it is more efficient and allows us to save time since we were dealing with a lot of cardboard.

Now onto the more interesting part of the practical. 

On the day itself, we were tasked to create an object of our choice using cardboard pieces. However, since this is an engineering course, it is obviously not that simple. Mr Chua introduced us to cardboard joineries that we had to incorporate into our product. We were told to use at least 6 of it in our final design. Since this was all new to us, we did not have a plan or even a sketch of what we wanted to do. Mr Chua decided to show us the work of other groups to help inspire us or give us an idea of what can be done. Out of the few that he showed us, he showed us a model of a plane. Our group saw it and decided that we wanted to make a plane as well. But not just any plane, a F22 fighter jet. Mr Chua also liked the idea so with that it was settled. Cardboard model of a F22 fighter jet. 

The plane itself was quite huge so one of my groupmates decided to do a rough sketch of the model while the rest of us started working on the joineries such as flanges for the boosters of the jet. Since we came in with no planning, there were obviously a lot of hiccups along the way. Our biggest hiccup was when we were working on the front part of the jet. We first had to draw 2 similar curved pieces and cut them out. They acted as the sides of the cockpit. Then we had to cut out the 'roof' of the cockpit. This was where things started going wrong. Since the sides of the were curved, we had to shape the roof so that it fits the sides. After that, we had to attach the sides to the roof. This process took waaaaay too long. Someone had to hold down the roof to maintain its shape while someone else had to glue the sides to the roof. All in all, the process took way too long, but it turned out better than I had initially expected and when we attached it to the main body of the plane, it turned out pretty good.

Another hiccup we faced was the distribution of work within our group. We had 3 people doing just the head of the plane, which in hindsight, was quite inefficient as we didnt need to have 3 of us doing just one part. Because of this, we took much longer than we had intended to which resulted in us having to work twice as fast so that we can meet the 2hr time limit. The saving grace was that the other 2 members were able to finish their parts quite quickly and managed to come over and help us.

Overall, this was a very fun learning experience as I did not imagine making something out of cardboard would be that difficult and adding the joineries made it much harder than it should be. However, I had an enjoyable time on this practical and managed to learn quite a bit on cardboard joineries which would definitely help me in the future for other modules if required. Cardboard is a very versatile material with many functions, and Im definitely looking forward to using it more.

Here's a video on our F22 fighter jet. Enjoy!!

To end of the practical, here's a picture of us and Mr Chua!!

Drawing and Sketching

For this week, we had to draw!!! Drawing in an engineering course. How exciting!!! I definitely wasn't looking forward to it as I'm not the best at drawing and managed to fail art in secondary school. This is already a good start. We were given 5 pieces of blank paper and we started of with something easy: lines. Can't be that difficult right?? 

Straight Lines

We were tasked to just simply draw a straight line as straight as possible without the use of a ruler. Seems simple enough right??We had to connect 2 points with a straight line. Its so easy that even a kid can do it. As I was drawing, I realised that by drawing the line as fast as possible, it would come off as straighter. Try it for yourself!!

Curved Lines

Next, we had to connect 3 points using a curved line with ,once again, no ruler. This one was pretty challenging for me as I couldn't connect all 3 points to save my life. I could only connect 2 which were the ends. The middle point never came into contact with a line. 

Circles

Moving onto circles. Drawing circles is already pretty tough for me as it always appears as an oval. However, for this excersise, we were told to draw 2 lines around 3cm apart and draw the circle within that boundary. This definitely helped me quite a bit as the boundary helped limit the size of the circle. But... judging from the picture, it might not have helped me as much as I claimed it did. It's definitely not perfect but at least it came out looking like a circle

We were than tasked to draw ovals next!! how exciting. Anyways, we had to draw 3 lines now and draw the oval within those 3 lines. This time, I actually felt pretty confidant as drawing ovals was very simple and since I always draw circles into ovals, I had plenty of practice. Out of all the other sketches, I felt the best for this as it turned out much better than I expected it to.

Vanishing Points

After feeling really good about myself from the warmup, Mr Chua decided to give us the actual challenge: Drawing from 1 vanishing point. He then went on to explain what is a vanishing point and taught us how to draw from 1 vanishing point. I honestly thought it was quite simple as the way he explained it sounded pretty simple. Then he gave us the challenge and I realised that I thought wrong. We were told to draw a milk carton using 1 vanishing point. He gave us 20mins to draw it and I drew absolutely nothing. I felt like an idiot as I looked around and saw my classmates attempting to draw it. I tried my best but it did not look like it's using the vanishing point. Mr Chua decided to put us all out of our misery and decided to show one of our classmates work. After referring to it, I finally managed to draw it.

Since there was 1 vanishing point, there is obviously going to be 2 vanishing points. The concept was the same and honestly, I felt pretty confidant about it as I managed to draw using 1 vanishing point. We had to draw a book using 2 vanishing points. This took much lesser time as compared to the milk and it turned out pretty good.

After the book, we then had to draw the coffee maker that we used during Practical 1 using 2 vanishing points. This was where the challenge began. I honestly didn't know what I was doing the entire time and just gave up. There was no way I was going to draw that. However, I eventually did draw it back home and it turned out not bad.

Last but not least, we had to draw our product using 1 or 2 vanishing points as part of our CA1. Since our group managed to understand the concept of using vanishing points, this was a breeze for us. Furthermore, since our product is a refrigerator, it was very similar to drawing the milk and book as the fridge resembled a cuboid.  

Overall, the practice made me understand how to draw objects more realistically as compared to what I'm used to drawing. This skillset would definitely help me in the future in various industries. 

Fusion 360

Now the reason why I was excited for the module in the first place. 3D printing. However, before printing the product, we need a drawing of the product first. This is where Fusion 360 comes in. The software allows us to 3D draw the product that we want before printing it out. To practice using the software, Mr Chua taught us how to 3D draw a keychain. The whole process was quite eye opening as this was my first time using a software to 3D draw something. Mr Chua guided us step by step in drawing the keychain, teaching us the various functions etc. This was important as we had to 3D draw a photo frame as the final part of our CA1. 

Photo frame design

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The link above is the link for my group's final photo frame design. This was definitely the hardest part of the CA1 as I was completely new to this software and was just learning. However the experience was definitely a very fun one. I obviously had difficulty doing it as I was trying to learn the ropes on how to use the software. I asked my friends and groupmates on how to complete the photo frame. I even resorted to using google on how to use the different functions of the software. Overall, I am definitely quite proud of myself for finally managing to complete it and I am definitely looking forward to using it again in the future when we actually have to 3D print something.

Thanks for reading the blog!!1 Stay tuned for more!!!