The fear of using construction tools is always within us, but when it’s your turn to help your peers, there is no choice. We have been working in the fablab, learning how to figure out the measurement of different shapes. At first, it was scary and my first thought was, “Why am I here? Why would I do this?” I did not want to participate in this project, and I was scared of using the machines. The next days that followed, I forgot that I did not want to be there. My goal was to finish and do well at what the teacher was asking us to do. I accepted the responsibility and worked with my group. I also made new friends and have had fun working in the fablab.
Now, I’ll tell with you some of the things that we were working on. I hate pushing heavy wood in the table machine because I’m not so strong. But I enjoyed it when my peers helped me. The fun part was when we were measuring the plywood because we made mistakes; we tried to figure out how wide and long it would be. We asked for help and the teacher explained to us how to find out the length and width. The hardest part of this project was to decide what design we were going to use. All of us had different ideas and sketches of the bookshelf and it was hard to decide because they were all good. Now, we are building a bookshelf that will have our initials big and thick in the sides to support the shape of it. The next picture shows when we were making the choice of what bookshelf sketch we were going to do.
My name is Cintia Prado. I’m a senior at Castlemont High School. We are making bookshelves to promote reading and literacy at school. We also want the school to look prettier. Reading is important because it helps you improve your vocabulary skills and it gives you knowledge.
We all work together as the group that we are. We honestly might struggle a lot but we have the support from our teacher.
Our design is based off a round bookshelf. We found this design interesting because we don’t have any similiar to this one at school.
A few weeks later:
I have enjoyed the Fab Lab because of our teacher. Our instructor, Danny, taught us everything that we know so far. We now always try our best to figure out the things we need to do next and that’s something that he also taught us. He would make us think and try to find out on our own and then he would tell us and correct us. I think that’s something very important because he’s not just telling us the answers. He’s teaching every single one of us how to do things on our own.
Now, I want to talk to you about our personal shelf. We started looking for designs, something that we wanted to create. Honestly, our group’s design doesn’t have a lot of details but we have had a little bit of difficulties. Our book shelf design is formed by semicircles, and we had to figure out the correct measurements to see how big they were going to be based on the bookshelf’s height. One of the things that we had trouble making was the compass. We had to create a compass to cut the semicircles, and finding the right measurements wasn’t that easy. The compass that we created is the one that my classmate is using in the picture above.That’s how we were cutting the semicircles.
Now, I find it more interesting to go to the Fab Lab. I think that it’s awesome how we have the opportunity to do something totally different from normal school things at least once a week. Is like taking a break from school. Yes, some things might not be that easy but I also enjoy being there.
(Book shelf under construction)