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Physical Fabrication

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This was a client-based project that worked with Kroka Expeditions in Marlow, New Hamshire. Kroka is a non-profit wilderness school that incorporates Waldorf education with its unique outdoor, wilderness nature. This project aimed to help Kroka by helping them with a series of technical and mechanical challenges that would enhance their campus. This involved designing a pulley system to lift 400-pound boats in their boat house, constructing a three-stove rocket stove in their shop village, and a solar kiln to improve their wood drying.

I don't completely know how to feel after this open innovation. The project ended up working and the final presentation went great, but I feel like a lot of time was spent not knowing exactly what to do. I don't completely know what it is, but I can't seem to fix the eventual slump I get in all of my projects. For this project, it was somewhere in between the first and second week. Even though I was doing work during that time, it didn't feel like the most productive work I could've been doing. A big part of that I think, has to do with the group dynamic. A four-person group made it so that the first part of the studio was very volatile and our ideas were constantly changing. And I find that my most successful projects are either solo, or when I'm the team lead, and when I have less control over where the project is going, I find I'm not as clear on what we should be doing, especially the first week. I kind of felt that way in this project. That's enough talking about the bad though. There was a lot of good that happened in this project. For one, working with Kroka was awesome. We built something that a client would use. How often does that happen at high school? We also worked on many technical skills, and I got a lot better at Fusion 360 while working on this project. Another huge element was collaboration. Working with Kroka, NuVu staff, and the four of us, the project was a constant state of communication. As I mentioned earlier, actually implementing something was huge. Giving Kroka a fire stove that they could use and a successful pulley system was huge and was what really made this project successful.

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