Reflection | Sam Riordan

Overall, the hoop house project really put a focus on the importance of teamwork and small scale material and joinery tests. It was difficult to find times to meet as a group during the week, but by keeping up a fairly rigorous pace and constantly pushing ourselves to evolve our design, we came out pretty well at the end. The one big issue was our joinery, and the way our hoop house was integrated with the site—that is to say, our structure blew over and most of it fell apart within just a few days, mainly because it wasn't properly secured. When we rebuilt it, we anchored our structure to the site in several places, staked it into the ground, and moved it to an area with less intense windage. The rebuilding was definitely a trying experience that we can learn from for our next construction project.

Assignment 5: Reflection - Mark Terra-Salomão

The two main lessons of constructing the hoop house project were that building stuff is hard and that hard work can be the way to build stuff. Now when I say building stuff is hard I'm referring to its actual construction. There are just so many slight misalignments and little details you forgot that can add hours to the build phase. In the earlier stages of building, logistics are also a huge problem in terms of moving large pieces of material, figuring out how to cut them to size, figuring out the best order for assembly (and in this case, disassembly and transport and then reassembly), etc., etc. I guess the true larger lesson to be learned, then, is it's always good practice to think about these problems before the actual construction phase so that you might lessen their impact or avoid them altogether.

When I say hard work can be the way to build stuff I'm referring to the design phase. In a group setting especially there are so many ideas and beliefs that conflict becomes almost inevitable. Even without conflict there is a still the issue of translating your design intent into something that will stand up and stay together. My group and I pulled two all-nighters, stayed up until five or six in the morning various other nights, and generally plodded relentlessly through week after week to design and build our project. There were some tough moments but our willingness to put in so many hours in the end gave us something we were, despite it all, really proud of. In other words, we almost wanted to kill each other at the end, but when we saw how beautiful the thing we made was, all the anger went away.

Reflection: Kelsey Simpson

As a group, we all became very passionate in the process of our design. From endless experimenting from the design to the construction phase, we learned a whole lot about workflow, efficiency, and adaptability. I'd say our willingness to modify our design as necessary was one of our strengths as well as one of our weaknesses. It was a strength in that it forced us to think creatively about solutions to problems that arose, but a weakness in that we may have been reluctant to veer too far from our original design. Specifically, we ran in to some construction problems with the structural system and bubbles of our project during the construction week, which forced us to do some quick thinking to change the construction technique of each, without changing the form. Which ultimately, with a little bit of sweat and tears, led us to the final construction.

Assignment 5 reflection Kris Li

One of the lessons that I took away from project two was that it is very helpful to establish a well-considered concept and remember to let it inform and direct the project throughout the design phase. In addition, prototyping and manipulating the material in a way to let it truly reflect the original concept can enhance the design.

Assignment 5: Reflection - Robert Esposito

Having gone through design, fabrication and assembly of the hoop house, I've realized that everything should be done with a Plan B. The most stressful issue we ran into was having the Fabrication Lab break down when the majority of our project depended on the CNC router. Having an alternative method of production would have saved time and saved years of my life that were lost in the process. The end.

Reflection

The main lesson that we learned from building this hoop house was to be flexible and accept when an aspect of the project needed to be changed. Originally, we had drawn out the shapes to cut the plastic in Rhino but quickly realized that because the distance between the frames was not as exact as the Rhino model, we tried to recalculate how to cut the plastic. I think we spent unnecessary time dwelling on how fit the plastic perfectly. However, in the end, we just placed a large sheet of plastic on the frame and trimmed the piece until it fit. 

Assignment 5: Reflection

One of the most important lessons was understanding the context of and around the site as well being aware of the 10ft X 4ft bed and how to accommodate a design in the space and limitations provided. Understanding real world issues and the problems faced such as budgeting the project and dFab issues taught me how to change mindsets quickly so that a project would be still met on the deadline. Being flexible towards the group and the project was the important aspect.

Assignment 5

When we began transforming our drawings into physical objects, everything failed. The bubbles didn’t fit, the valves weren’t holding, and the joints were bending. Luckily, we did a lot of testing and had time to improve these problems. The most important point is that when transforming an idea from your imagination, to paper, to a 3-D object, things happen that you do not account for. This is why testing is crucial. 

Assignment 5: Reflection - Carolina Tamayo

At the beginning of the project, we were trying to find pre-fabricated parts that would hold our structure. This became a problem since our greenhouse was so specific to the site. I learned from the construction process that making things from scratch and creating personalized parts is a better learning process and also develops better results.

Assignment 5: Reflection

One of the major reflections of mine is about budget. Not only because our true budget has gone way over the planned budget, but also while shopping for the materials, in order to save money, we changed our plan and bought the cheaper but unstable materials, which finally resulted in the collapse of our hoop house. From this experience I got that maybe we should honestly follow the plan, or at least shouldn't change it only for saving money…

Assignment 5 - Reflection

The hoop house taught me the importance of doing test runs. A small mock up on a piece of scrap material will save time, money, and headaches later down the road. It is better to assume nothing and test things out to have no doubts in mind that whatever it is that is trying to be accomplished is actually possible.

Assignment 5- Reflection- Gary Li

The hoop house project taught me lessons regarding waste, technology, and joinery. It is essential to understand exactly how much material you need as well as finding ways to utilize what isn't used. Another interesting point was that our group along with other groups relied too heavily on technology. Without it, most of the hoop house structures would not be standing. I appreciate that our group utilized all hand-made joinery, which creates these "special moments" when looking at the structures in detail.

Scott Holmes

10/30/2013

Fabrication

Fabrication Assignment 5

                The hoop house project was a revealing experience that showed me how group work and making something happen can be a dangerous balance. On the one hand, you can work together and create something well rounded, functional, and beautiful. On the other, the group can begin to cave in on itself, work will not get done, and interest will be lost. It is a constant struggle to keep a level of interest invested within the entire group but once it is achieved it becomes self-sustaining. 

 

 

Assignment 5 Reflection – Ana Mernik

The Hoop House Project taught me the lesson of muda: using the projector as the middle man between the triangles measured on the assembled structure and the Rhino model, we were able to save large amounts of plastic (because the accurate measurements left no plastic unused) and time (because we were able to work in digital and model form at the same time). 

Assignment 5 Reflection

In constructing our hoop house project, my group focused much on joints and assembly that would theoretically work because they worked in our Rhino model. On site during assembly, I realized the importance of full scale mockups (which weren't necessarily possible due to time and budget constraints) and to not only rely on computer models and hand drawings.

Assignment 5: Reflection

           Throughout the construction process of my hoop house project, my thoughts only revolved

around structurally secured joints and the assembly of my design. I completed disregarded the

transportation diagram which would have comprised of how the hoop house disassembly. As a

result, transporting the components became more difficult than it could have been. This led to my

realization on the level of importance of disassembly in a design process.

Matthew Z Lin - Assignment 5: Reflection

Unlike the other groups, my group's hoop house was almost ripped apart by heavy winds and rain.  Seeing a pile of parts when we visited the site for documentation was a wake-up call that we focused too much on the lightweight aspect of the project.  This goes to show that all parts of the project must be addressed and completed with great care and consideration.

Assignment 4: Design Thinking (Kirk Newton, Alyssa Hamilton, Shannon Earnest, Scott Holmes, Daniel Ha, Kris Li)

• Designing our product to function with a minimum number of parts, including reducing the number and types of joints and redesigning each rib to be a single piece reduced the budget and increased the structural integrity of the product as a whole. 
• Use of prefabricated joints allows us to create a product with consistent reliability across each individual span, as opposed to relying on the variable quality of handmade joints and having to remake unsatisfactory ones, thereby saving time and money. 
• Designing a structure that is easily collapsible and dissassemblable not only gives the user a product that goes beyond the use case of a static structure, but is also inherently easy to build and move, easing the initial construction sequence and transportation process.
• Scheduling the drawing and construction process resulted in us being able to reduce the workload on each member, by having us determine what we needed to do beforehand. This ensures that the group does not fail to produce a critical element, or unintentionally waste time and effort on outputs that we cannot use.
• By scaling details in the design, we can treat groups of parts as individual elements as the scale of the drawings increases, reducing the level of apparent complexity of the project during the construction process.

Assignment 4: Design Thinking: Muda (Brian Bollens, Aileena Gray, Candace Ju, Cy Kim, Amber Qasir, Mark Terra-Salomao)

1. In order to maximize efficiency and minimize waste in expensive, valuable materials, we have laid out the pieces of our structure so that they are nested and also possible to cut down into smaller pieces (this is in the event that we cannot CNC the arches and need to go to wood shop; being able to cut down each sheet into smaller segments will make it more easily divisible among group members as well as easier to cut with tools in the wood shop.

2. Each arch is segmented into smaller pieces that make it possible to transport what will be a large structure very easily, as well as giving us a simple way to assemble these precisely measured arches on site with minimal effort.

3. As we have carefully planned and researched materials, we were able to efficiently plan what we needed, what we could do without, and how much of everything we needed, accounting for the inevitable portion that will be wasted (i.e. rough lumber will not be entirely usable because of the losses during lumber prep)

4. We have devised a schedule that carefully organizes who is doing what on each day, as well as goals for each day so that we may track our progress and ensure that we do not fall behind.

5. By labelling each piece in a systematic way, we can ensure that our on-site installation will be efficient and relatively free of confusion, as the labels will not be removed until the entire structure is built and installed on site.

Assignment 4: Design Thinking: Muda (Quresh Tyebji, Matt Porter, Bobby Esposito, Carter Nelson, Sam Day, and Nicolas Gomez)

1.     We will nest the cut sheets and use the material in a way that minimizes waste of material and time, as well as cut cost of our most expensive material (plywood).

2.     Because of the inherit flatness of our rib structure and bench components, we will be able to efficiently flat pack our final product for transport.

3.     Using digital fabrication techniques, we will quickly produce our plywood structure in a way that is precise and clean.

4.     By covering the ribs with the plastic, we preserve the integrity of the rib-based structure due to the weather conditions.

5.     We use on campus preparation, manufacturing, such as woodshop, dFab, and studio space, to create final product to eliminate wasted travel time and cost.

Assignment 4: Design Thinking: Muda (Waste) - William, Yasmeen, Liz, Nathan, Kayla, Eric

- By creating a materials list, our group has organized and streamlined the materials necessary for the completion of our project. This method will help to eliminate inventory waste by making sure we only purchase the materials that we need (plus a little extra).
- We also created a transportation plan in cooperation with another group to minimize time/effort/cost of transporting our pieces to the site for assembly. This will help to eliminate transport and waiting time waste by making sure we are being most efficient with our time and energy.
- We created a very detailed Rhino model to aid us in measuring specific lengths of materials and especially unique angles for our joints. This will help us avoid over-production and inventory waste. This is especially important in helping us avoid other kinds of waste as it can often compound and cause backup in production.
- We have created a schedule for the process of material preparation to eliminate waiting time and motion waste, so that we can work efficiently, especially in shop.
- We have carefully made cut sheets and measured lengths and angles of custom pieces to help avoid defect waste caused by mistakes during fabrication.

Assignment 4 Hoopizzle Group: Omar, Amy, Madhura, Keith, Jenny, Eugene, Gary

• By redesigning half of our aluminum joints (the more complicated/probablyunfeasible ones) we lessened the hidden waste in our design - getting rid of "muda."
• To avoid processing waste, our group would make sure to go over every detail that needed to be changed or altered and made those changes to the rhino model so that we don’t have to go back because of additional things that we want to change.
• By labeling all of our parts in a organized and legible fashion and by scheduling out each portion of work by day and location, we will avoid transport waste.
• Since we couldn’t make the shop drawings before the final rhino model was completed with every detail, we had one or two group members finish that portion of the work while the other group members slept. Then, when the model was done, the sleeping group members would work on the next portion while the working group members went to bed. This basically got rid of all waiting time waste.
• We have/will reduce motion waste due to our organization as a group. All of our files are in one place and all of our materials will be labeled and our process of work flow is already designed in the most efficient way we could come up with

Team Arscott Girls (Ana, Kelsey, Kayla, Sophie, Danielle, Nahyung, and Alexa)

• Elimination or diminishing over-production waste can be achieved by creating an equation or exact way of calculation how to make each “bubble” or module that is a part of our structure. This way we won’t make a mistake.
• If we create whole sheet of skin instead of making each module and stitching it together (which requires more time and effort), we can decrease processing waste. The stitching does not add value.
• To eliminate any transport waste, we could buy all of our materials in the same place and have our diagram show exactly what needs to be built on site and what could be prepared ahead of time.
• In an ideal situation, all of the materials would be bought locally and distributed to customers locally in order for us to diminish transport waste.
• We need to order wood and it needs to be shipped. This might create waiting time waste. In order to diminish this we could work on the “skin” of our project and on the parts that we have the materials for while we wait for the structure materials.
• When buying materials, if we calculated the exact dimensions plus “wiggle room” we could make inventory waste a minimum. By adding this little addition of dimensions we can ensure that in the long run, there won’t be any additional wastes.
• One way we are accounting for defects is in the ordering of the wood we need. We have added a margin of “wiggle room” big enough to account for any production/shipping defects but small enough so as to diminish inventory waste.
• Another way to ensure the minimization of defects is by testing a lot. By doing this we can ensure that when we start our full-scale model, we won’t make any mistakes and will know exactly what we’re doing.
• To decrease processing waste we must have one reliable vehicle of communication. This way, we could contact each other directly and not waste time trying to reach one another.

Assignment 4 - Carolina, Charmaine, Daniel G, Horace, Noopur, Rachel

• In order to minimize potential waste created through the process of building, we will prepare several cut sheets generated accurately and digitally for each of the different materials that will be used
• To prevent wasting time and human resources, we will devise a work schedule with goals set for each working period and allocate tasks to each member to the group to their specific strengths to work more efficiently.  This schedule will also account for backup plans in case we are not able to do our original task due to external forces, we still will be using that alloted time efficiently
• To reduce the amount of physical waste created from materials, we will be testing joints first with smaller pieces of material and prevent wasting large pieces of material
• We will plan to use machinery earlier on in the work process to prevent mura - the overloading of equipment, facility or human resources
• We will be keeping track of all our used material and aim to fit the most into each piece of material and recycle it after the process of production

Design thinking: Muda (Team Chang, Fah, Chandler, Garrett, Mathew, Sam R.)

• We have a construction schedule with mini-deadlines and expected number of people needed for each task to prevent time waste
• To reduce motion waste, we can plan out all the things that needs to be done in woodshop prior to going there so we can make the least amount of trips possible 
• We have an efficient structural system that can be easily constructed using ABS pipes/joints
• To reduce our waste production, we will prepare a plastic cut sheet specific to our design
• All the materials used in our hoop house structure is necessary/functional so that there is no unnecessary weight on the structure