We made a better version of the prototype. It's bigger than the first and has somewhat of a tail, more legs than originally anticipated and it stands. We are in the process of solving issues with how the joints will be held together and how well the legs can stay stable.

What we have now is a half scale model made out of foam core, screws, and wooden dowels, and it is not fabricated. The models of the furniture was all done on sketchup and printed by the laser cutter. What we would like to have for a final product is a full scale face hugger chair made out of compression spring locking devices and the new wooden parts. That is also fabricated. This would allow for a more sturdy chair, and for it to be held in more positions such as a bed, rocking chair, sofa, etc. We have an ok half scale model that could be slightly improved but is still functional. Graeme wanted something that could be a sofa, chair, and a bed but also only made out of one piece that could act as a joint as well. I wanted a clear plastic chair with water in it and LEDS in the bottom for a light show effect. What we thought the project would turn out to be would be a clear plastic sofa with water in it that folded out into a bed and chair, being supported my six spider legs but we have gone through many iterations since then.

OGEL became the name of our project because it is LEGO spelled backwards and we thought that our table pieces are like Legos just in a larger scale. Dan and I have been working on this project for the past two weeks and have gone through many phases and stages along the way. We started out with the simple idea of making a lunch table. We wanted to make a table where students at Nuvu could eat and gather around. This table had to be big enough for all the students but not too big so that when a meeting was being held there it felt like you were miles away from each other.

Our first idea was to make a table that can change in size as well as height. The way it changed in size was that the backs of the benches become the leaves in the table allowing it to double in size if wanted. The legs of these benches could also be used as the legs of the table so it could be lowered to more of a coffee table for a buisnessy meeting. In the end we thought you could have a lower coffee table with benches with backs on them or higher longer lunch table with benches with no backs on them. Through this process we came across a lot of problems such as the stableness of the table and the strength of the joints that connected everything. We decided to use a double jointed finger lock that made it much stronger of a bond but it was still unstable.

From here we went to a second idea using less pieces and having something that was a lot more stable. We made 3 main pieces that could be switched back and forth between a table and a bench. The table would be in a T shape allowing it to be both sturdy and nice looking and the bench would just be put together by moving one piece of the wood. However, we realized in the end we were making the same piece of furniture just positioned differently so we changed our project one more time.

Our current and best idea came from a combination of both of the ones described above. We wanted to use the T shape table idea and less pieces along with the finger locking joints to hold it all together. Our product uses 4 main core pieces that are versiatile enough to be able to make a bench, a chair, a small coffee table, or a larger lunch table. Our pieces are all by multiples of 10 and can connect to each other in certain ways that can create different pieces of furniture depending on a certain persons needs. We basically made a kit of pieces that can be used over and over again to make whatever you need/want.

The last and final studio of the NuVu term was on modular furniture. Starting out in day one we knew we wanted to make something interesting and that stands out. We went through different ideas but settled on making our inspiration the facehugger from the movie “Alien”. We originally wanted the chair to be a chestburster but settled on the facehugger. The reason being is that looking at the skeleton and simply bending the tail to imitate the back of the chair, the body being a seat, and the legs being of course the legs of the chair this creatures universal skeletal structure could be transformed into a piece of modular furniture with ease. A facehugger, for those that are not familiar with the film, is an insect-like or scorpion like creature with eight legs and long tail.

Our original idea was to have a table that stored chairs or benches inside of it. The table had a bench that could slide out down so one could sit on it.

Our first critique was that we weren't being very modular. So it could be a bench or a table... anything else? To do that, we hit upon the idea of using cubes: A large cube for a table and smaller cubes for the chairs.

In the second picture you can see our idea: the chairs fit inside the table, which is hollow, and when pulled our become chairs.

To make it even more modular, the chairs could have a second use when they are inside the table. Wouldn't it be awesome if when inside the table, the whole thing would transform into a chest of drawers? We made a model (picture #3,4) in a 3D modeling program, and got to work building it.

Eight chairs can fit into one table – a chest of drawers two boxes wide. Here we ran into a problem: Most chairs were 20 inches, and most tables 30. But since 20 is more then half of 30, we can't fit 2 20x20x20 chairs into a 30x30x30 table.

We decided to make the table 40x40x30. The top of the table could slide up ten inches when one wanted the chairs to fit in, but when you took out the chairs, the tabletop would slide down to a normal table height.

The final design has several different forms: Firstly, just being a table and chairs. It can also be a longer table, with two tabletops connected to make a longer one. It can also be a chest of drawers, with a top the height of a counter- slightly higher then normal, or finally, two table tops can also connect to be a coffee table.

We didn't have enough time to make a full size model, so given more time we would both do that and research good materials to use for this. We could even start a business selling modular cube furniture.

The last and final studio of the NuVu term was on modular furniture. Starting out in day one we knew we wanted to make something interesting and that stands out. We went through different ideas but settled on making our inspiration the facehugger from the movie “Alien”. We originally wanted the chair to be a chestburster but settled on the facehugger. The reason being is that looking at the skeleton and simply bending the tail to imitate the back of the chair, the body being a seat, and the legs being of course the legs of the chair this creatures universal skeletal structure could be transformed into a piece of modular furniture with ease. A facehugger, for those that are not familiar with the film, is an insect-like or scorpion like creature with eight legs and long tail.

W finally have made a final 3-D model of what we want the chair to look like. Issues with how the joints will be locked into place have been resolved. The only issue is obtaining it. Right now the pieces to make the facehugger are being laser cut and we hope to have it put together by the end of the day.

Spring 2013 - Studio 4/4
In many places, shelter is very hard to come by. What if when a house is missing a roof, you could just take the cabinet and fix it? This studio's goal was to make modular shelters, and we decided to make a very compact table.

Our original idea was to have a table that stored chairs or benches inside of it. The table had a bench that could slide out down so one could sit on it.

Our first critique was that we weren't being very modular. So it could be a bench or a table... anything else? To do that, we hit upon the idea of using cubes: A large cube for a table and smaller cubes for the chairs.

In the second picture you can see our idea: the chairs fit inside the table, which is hollow, and when pulled our become chairs.

To make it even more modular, the chairs could have a second use when they are inside the table. Wouldn't it be awesome if when inside the table, the whole thing would transform into a chest of drawers? We made a model (picture #3,4) in a 3D modeling program, and got to work building it.

Eight chairs can fit into one table – a chest of drawers two boxes wide. Here we ran into a problem: Most chairs were 20 inches, and most tables 30. But since 20 is more then half of 30, we can't fit 2 20x20x20 chairs into a 30x30x30 table.

We decided to make the table 40x40x30. The top of the table could slide up ten inches when one wanted the chairs to fit in, but when you took out the chairs, the tabletop would slide down to a normal table height.

The final design has several different forms: Firstly, just being a table and chairs. It can also be a longer table, with two tabletops connected to make a longer one. It can also be a chest of drawers, with a top the height of a counter- slightly higher then normal, or finally, two table tops can also connect to be a coffee table.

Lastly, we had some extra time, so we decided to make some actual drawers. We drew models in sketchup, 3d modeling software, and cut them with a laser cutter. Once it was done, we had a working model of a table that could store 4 chairs inside it.