Sunday, July 25, 2010

Days 9 & 10 - Sea Perch Mass-Production Factory

On Thursday and Friday, I experienced the life of an assembly line worker in a factory turning out...Sea Perches. Cole and I helped to construct 6 Sea Perches for a Boy Scout's event in the near future. Jake and Beth set up the frames, then Cole and I soldered and waxed the motors. With 18 motors to manage, rather than 3 when we built our own during week 1, the work became messy, our hands covered in wax and epoxy by the end of each day. We worked as efficiently as we could. On Friday, I lined up a pile of propellors and brass nuts to attach onto the 18 motor shafts with epoxy. I can barely believe that only one week earlier I was clueless and fascinated by my one Sea Perch, the Kraken, and needed instructions at every step. Now I can build Sea Perches mindlessly and quickly.

On Friday, the four of us watched a Rube Goldberg Competition in Lobby 13, part of a summer camp for girls. Five teams of four each created their own complex machines during the camp, which they ran for an excited audience on the last day. One particularly memorable contraption started out with butter melting, which pushed forward a ball, which rolled through a series of steps and eventually activated a spoon that stirred lemonade mix in a pan with water. Another machine ended in a blow drier turning on and blowing aside confetti covering a surprise snowman figure in a cardboard box. Though only one of the 5 machines worked flawlessly, each was impressively creative and showcased long hours of effort and teamwork. The audience and other campers were very supportive of each project, even when a certain step failed to work or needed a little push from a team member to move something forward.

No comments:

Post a Comment