Flats
Description
For Problem #3, we had to create several flats for a comedy show that would be built, installed, and painted by Tech Production students. Of all the flats, two of them are curved, and all the flats required custom crown moulding. One of the issues that we have to solve is making sure that the walls doesn’t shake because there’s a door that will be slammed constantly. As a team, our definition(s) of the problem was to figure out how to create the custom moulding and the curved flats, and how to stabilize the flats for the door slams. We also have to figure out the scheduling of the construction of the flats, since its being done during class hours.
Since there was three of us on the team, we divided up the work equally. I was in charge of all the CAD drawings for the flats. This was my first time dealing with curved flats, so I had a hard time figuring out how to frame them, and how to properly draft them in AutoCad. Once I figured it out, the next step was trying to figure out how to keep the walls sturdy. To prevent the walls from shaking we used arbor jacks on multiple flats, and by pipe bracing. When it came to the curved moulding, we decided to use a mixture of wood and foam.
Analysis
This problem can relate to many real-world situations, such as creating construction drawings, scheduling, planning, and budgeting for a show and/or scene shop. While working on this problem, we had many set backs that affected the end result of our project. We didn’t account for mistakes while working on the prototype for the moulding, and for figuring out the total cost of labor hours for the project. In matter of fact, our total labor hours was completely off -it was way too small than it should be. If this was a real life situation, that would’ve been a really big problem because that could run over deadlines causing major problems. Another issue with that is, if this was bidding, with the information that we had, we’re saying that we could complete the project in a short amount of time with a few people. But in reality, it’s going to take much longer. So that’s a problem because we didn’t account for extra timing.
Application
While working on this project, I realized that everything is not going to go as expected. Throughout the project, there was a lack of communication with my teammates and I, that affected the overall project. Especially when everyone is busy outside outside of school. Many parts of the project was incomplete or not planned out fully because of this. In order for a project to work, there has to be communication, and when there isn’t it just causes the overall project to rushed and undone.
XREFing the top view of the flats XREF for the side view of custom moulding
