WEEK 1

LEARNINGS

-researching the collaboration topics and introduced to infographic installations of which I didn't know before, learned it is actually one of the best ways to get informations based on a certain topic

COLLABORATIVE LEARNINGS

3

MAKER SKILLS AND ATTITUDE

-making a mock up in InDesign really helped to see faster what the end result is going to look like and whether that is suitable or not; it also helped us with making the stickers of the correct size since we inserted the real numbers into the board setup

-learned about working with foam, figured out it is the easiest to just cut it with a knife, important to mark all the lines to be precise

-used the folding technique which I have never used before, in illustrator I have marked the lines which supposed to be dotted with a different colour and afterwards the laser cutting programme instantly detected the second layer which supposed to be dotted

-by working with foam and paper I figured out that glueing these two layers actually doesn't work and it's much better if you just paste paper with a paper and add on a rectangular coverage also the "folding tongues"

-have learned that you need to turn the things that turn out as planned into happy accidents, by running out of graffiti colour we figured that the board actually looks more interesting than if it would be perfectly painted

-problems with overlapped lines in illustrator with text, deleting texts if you have deleted the overlap

-the collaboration went really good because we have been actually working together throughout the whole time

-the first day we defined the topic and set the possible questions or statements which could be interesting for our class or which could help us divide the groups in a better way, so the collaborations could be more efficient and structured, we each wrote down for ourselves suggestions for the questions and then talked about all possible options

-I learned from Melissa how to actually make folding (dotted) lines for the laser cutter

-I suggested to make the decision a bit faster than Melissa has wanted because I was scared we wouldn’t have the time for an execution otherwise, maybe if we would have waited a bit more the topics or at least the answers to the question could be more relevant, the positive part about proceeding fast with topic decision was that we had a lot of time for realising the infographic installation since we encountered quite many problems on the way of making it

1st picture - first try out without fold lines and "folding tongues"
2nd picture - second try out with dotted lines and "folding tongues"

-we both divided the work evenly, so Melissa was for example working on making the stickers and sticking it onto the board and I was working on making the portraits and covering the foam rectangular solids

unevenly coloured board

-when cutting the paper it helps if you have the spacers, but then always turn off the air blowing of the laser cutter otherwise it blows the laser cutter part over the next one and at the end it will laser cut few times same paper

-I ran into many problems related to foam covering rectangles because at first I was trying to fold it myself without the folding line and with all sorts of glues but neither of them folded the paper and the foam together

-next step was to change the rectangular shape into making small "folding tongues" all around the rectangular shape so after they have been cut I was able to stick the papers onto each other and not onto the foam and additional element was as well making the folding lines

-in the process of making the folding lines, I was not able to select specific line in the laser cutting programme even though the lines were shown as separate in my illustrator file, also the lab technicians didn’t know what could cause that so what I have done after Melissa’s suggestion is to change the colour of the lines in illustrator, learning point: laser cutting programme recognises the 2 colours as two different layers automatically, so the lines are instantly separated