Weekly Response 4 - Sarah Carter

When this project was initially assigned was very nervous. Creating a stool out of cardboard that could support my own weight was something that I had absolutely no experience with. It was even more nerve wracking when later it was determined that the stool actually had to hold 175 pounds. This was very hard to test for me because I did not know where to come up with 60 extra pounds to test the strength of my stool with. In the end everything turned out alright despite never being able to test for 175 pounds.

The design for my stool came to me in several different stages throughout the project. I first experimented with the different types of joints that I could use in my stool. Though this experimentation I learned that I did not want to use tabs in my final design, I wanted to use slotting to build my stool. So building upon that I then stumbled upon the next aspect of my design. I wanted to have the shell of my stool be aesthetically appealing by slitting the sides and having the sides of my stool have multiple layers to them. I then built a small model out of note cards that helped me to decide what the outer shell of my stool would look like. This model helped me determine that I wanted my stool to have three sides instead of four because three sides made the stool more stable. On the inside of my stool I decided that the structure would all be held together with the joints and it would be connected to the outer shell through the joinery also. I originally just had three pieces of cardboard holding the shell together and forming the structure but I later determined that I had to add a few extra pieces to the center to help support the weight of the person sitting on the stool. The structure of the stool and the shell of the stool were essentially independent of each other. so realistically the shell was just ornamentation because it could be removed and the stool would still be able to support weight.

The largest thing that I struggled with during this project was figuring out how I wanted to attach the top of the stool. I spent a very long time trying to figure this aspect of the stool out. I actually figured it out through the drawings that I chose to draw on the outside of the shell. The top of the stool was constructed so that it would have several different layers just like roses. The idea of how to attach it to the stool came soon after. I went with a variation of a tab. One of the bottom layers of the top had an edge folded down and then tabbed so it could could connect to the center of the main structure. If I had more time to improve this project I would have spent more time on the top of the stool to make it more aesthetically appealing instead of looking like it was very haphazard.