As previously stated, we are now getting to the point where we’re not only working in the shop consistently, but we’re starting to mass-produce things. This would entail all the things such as jigs and an efficient division of labor as people are occupying the shop in an assembly-line manner. When we get back to the shop today, we will be cutting the rest of the metal for the doors (2 people) and then that will go to the team that sets up the door frame on a welding jig (3-4 people). We also now have the capabilities to begin fabricating the truss, after a decently long ping-pong match to get everything structurally sound and visually desirable, so I imagine that will make up a large part of today.
The trick now will be to get comfortable and in the swing of things… There are some unforeseen small problems that I’m sure will arise when all 9 of us are constantly working, like making sure there is adequate and comfortable space to work and set up different stations, to maintain somewhat of a rotation of people in order to expose students to all parts of the process, things of that nature. After we set up the metal cutting jig on Wednesday, I also started to rearrange and reconfigure the metal shop layout; this involves bringing in necessary tools within arms reach, clearing off tables and creating spaces to store different types of pieces that we’ve cut, keeping up with tallies and pieces needed vs. cut, giving clear foot space and/or turnaround space (because these pieces of steel are BIG!). I imagine we will continue to tweak this down to a gnat so that will be able to maximize our efficiency.
We’ve done some other things in effort to keep us on track, like turn the entire whiteboard upstairs to a calendar and we now have a schedule to hold us accountable. We’ve also looked into purchasing the wood that we will need for this project, however we still need to sit down as a group and decide on what our scheme will be, in terms of color or finish material; this obviously is dependent on the type of wood that we buy. The wood could take up to 2 weeks to get here, and it’s rational to start looking at the timeline and get a little anxious! However, I believe that if we are working diligently and efficiently in the shop to a degree where we get all components done by the time our wood arrives, we don’t have too much left to do besides stand it up. I think the most challenging part of the fabrication will be the roof panels, simply because we haven’t made any mock-ups regarding that yet.