3DD Pathway - Weekly Review

During the 3D week I explored many ways of designing and creating for 3D. And throughout this week I found myself trying to make things that I had no idea of doing. It challenged me in everyway and tested my skills which I liked - I liked that I didn’t know what I was doing as it let me fully experiment and be free with the creations I made. During this week we were given many different tasks to achieve, these include: creating a paper sculpture to hold a water bottle, creating a cardboard structure to hold my weight, making a spaghetti structure, and making a large bridge. And out of these, I was only successful with a few – however with my failures I was able to learn what went wrong and how I could avoid the same mistakes in the next tasks. It felt really good when I was able to create a piece that worked well. 

When I was working I often got comments from the students and teachers around me about my work I was making or had made. These comments often helped me to improve the piece I had made for instance when trying to produce the protective shell for the spaghetti task I found that after discussing the task and getting the reaction from what I had made - I realised that it may not have been strong enough and so used pillars to hold up the structure. Often times my tutors may hint ways that would improve the strength of the piece as well as things not to do. When my water bottle carrier didn’t work my tutor explained that this was a good idea even though it did not work – he suggested that if it was mad out of a stronger material it should have worked. This helped me when creating my next piece and guided me in things I should and should not do. 

One of the things that I have learned from carrying out these tasks was to plan before carrying out the creation – even if it literally meant just thinking about the factors that are needed to make it a success and the factors that could go wrong (such as what would be on it? What is the most effective way to make the material stronger? The height, how will it stand and etc.) This week was very practical; I had to learn how to come up with quick solutions to a problem. For instance when creating my structures I had to think of ways to make it stronger or for fixing a wobbly base.

I think that the work I created succeeded (even if it some of it didn’t necessarily work) because I spent time designing and planning the look and figuring ways to improve the use of the structure. I tried to make my piece look visually interesting to respond to the tasks we were set – and because I tried to experiment each of my work shows a unique look. If my piece did not work I often felt disappointed – I wanted to make something that didn’t work (so I instead thought of improvements for next time.) Another aspect that I didn’t like about my work was that sometimes it wasn’t measured out neatly and this meant that some times it looked a little messy.

I found planning and then making quite hard to do because most of the time the plans that I had couldn’t be made because of the material was unable to bend a certain way or etc. I also found the lack of materials hard to do because it meant I had only one or a couple tries at making a piece I had never made before. However I found this exciting at the same time and meant I had to make it (I wasn’t to hung up on ‘I don’t know what to do’ as I had only one chance. Most of the time I was making what worked well when I was making. The task that I found most easy way the spaghetti structure – this was because we were given more time in planning and making which let me explore lots of ideas before actually creating. I also really liked the material even though it was delicate it was something completely different. In order to save time I could have tried planning most of my tasks a little better and measuring the material I used a little more, in order to prevent any mistakes which could cause later problems such as the balance. By planning better I will be able to come up with a clear idea that will drive my work instead of sometime improvising. Overall I really enjoyed the excitement of the 3DD week as it was very practical and tested many skills.