Problem 4- outline presentation
Problem 4 started out by reading the F2M play. It was definitely interesting but I personally did not enjoy reading it. My classmates and I had to read the play with a mindset of trying to figure out what are the most important scenery based things in the play. It was more about the structure of the build, the setting, and the props. I learned in knowing this information, we’re able to determine what are the most significant parts of the play according to how many times a scenery prop was used or the structure of flooring, wallpaper, molding, and etc. that should be considered.
I think the first time I meet with my group members, we didn’t really know where to start. We had to work on the budget and labor hours first. It wasn’t like our last three problems, where we just started wherever we wanted to and then based on drawings and what we bought, we had a budget and a plan. This time, we had to make a budget plan first and then follow through with drawings and revisions. Our problem definition we came up with was: “To create a home style set with no visible seams and a strong structure while keeping a budget of $12,000.”
Throughout the process, we focused more on budgeting and discovering cheaper products that still fit the criteria of the play, as well as easier ways to save time. There were many revisions before we got to our final total budget. We changed the hard wood flooring two times to something cheaper but that still looked good. We also originally had the idea of making a brick wall with homasote but figured that it would take too long to do and decided to go with a realistic wallpaper that has some texture to it. There were other materials that were replaced with something cheaper and as capable but these are the two materials that made the most impact on saving money and time. My group decided together to see the caparison between building a track and buying a track as well as making a tree versus buying one. We discovered it’s pretty easy to make a track but it requires less time and is cheaper to buy a track. With the tree we discovered it’s cheaper making a tree out of plain brown paper, chicken wire, some plywood, and PVC pipes. While making the tree, we did a comparison between using Great Stuff and plain brown paper. We discovered we could not work with Great Stuff due to our lack of knowledge of knowing how to shape objects with Great Stuff. We were able to use the plain brown paper much easier. We crumbled the brown paper and use a hot glue gun to glue it unto the chicken wire. Then we painted some streaks of dark brown paint and a hint of forest green to make it look a bit more realistic. It was fun building the tree.
I learned a lot from this group problem. I learned that there are cheaper substitutes that are also capable of working as well as more expensive products or ways. I also learned that there is no harm in testing prototypes to see if something is better to work with. I learned about doing labor hours. I never thought I wold have to think so much about how many hours someone should have and the payment they will receive. It was so new to me and through that learning experience, I learned more about time management and being more organized than ever! This experience helps me with other projects in other classes as well. Like my Introduction to Video and Film class, I was able to schedule days to plan to add effects on my video, adjust the clips, add sound, and etc. It’s all a great experience.
