Industry Placement; Day Five

30th March 2012

The steel structure I drew up and gave to the workshop yesterday had been built - hurrah! Although it was welded together and it was supposed to be bolted - I made the mistake of not relayinf this information to the metalwork guys - in other words - I forgot. Oops.

Here it is completed with timber cladding.

I then created a CNC ready drawing of some bar tops for a Coca Cola job - there was a learning process involved in this; for example making sure the drawing was at co-ordinates (0,0) so the MasterCam programe can find it (problems with working in infinite spaces), making sure its on the right sheet material bed and also saved in the right area for the programmer to find it.

For lunch I had a cheese and ham sandwich in a crusty roll that was really yummy - although I forgot I didn't have any cash and now owe Tony the sandwich man £3 for Monday. Oops!!

I did a rough costing for Richard for a company wanting SetSquare to make some sofas - so I had to mock up a drawing of roughly what it would look like, work out quantities for leather upholstery, foam etc and compare that to a price from contract furniture makers Hillcross to make a similar sofa (Verona Bench). I created a spreadsheet and emailed it to Richard to he had something to show the client - basically - it's to expensive to custom make furniture - better to contract it.

Industry Placement: Day Four

29th March 2012

As aforementioned in my last post; I had the morning to draw up a steel struture being used to life two pieces of glass onto a roof using a crane. I drew - it was checked several times by members of the production team and after several draughts (see folder) I was able to hand it to the metalworkers for construction.

Having something I have drawn being made for an important client is quite exciting - and also having someone checking over my drawings is very useful - telling me where I can improve etc.

The afternoon involved a site visit at a top secret location in London for a major sports event happening over the summer. Mysterious.

The Project Manager and myself went into Westfields in Stratford for a burrito. It was very nice and I had rice, chicken, sour cream and guacamole in mine. I went for the medium strength salsa - although in retrospect I think I should have gone for the hot. After lunch I donned my steel toe caps, a hard hat and my hi-vis jacket and sauntered onto the building site located not far from where we had lunch.

I can't say much about what was being built on site - but it was high up and everyone was very busy. There was a lift and everything. I was introduced to lots of members of the construction crew and they were all very nice. I sat in with the Project Manager on a few meetings - but also did some surveying of the site (laser measurers are very exciting!) and the boys also roped me in to laying some oak wood laminate flooring. There was a continued faff with the AC unit cassette as the one that was deemed to be the correct one was actually twice the size of the one we had back at Mitcham and would not have fit.

The View

The view

Oak laminate

This was fun...!

Cisco House

Where the 360 cinema is going

Tube tunnel

Site

Afterwards we got an ice-cream and journeyed back to Mitcham to end the day.

I really liked going out onto site as I had been looking at technical drawings and pieces of scenery all week and it was good to be able to put them into context and see where they were going. There is a plan for me to go on site with the Project Manager next week to act as his assistant to [hopefully] make his job easier.

Industry Placement; Day Three

28th March 2012

Today started with an early morning meeting; scheduled for 8am. Unfortately the client did not arrive till 10 - and due to the confidential nature of the meeting/client I am not allowed to go into much detail with what the job is!

It was interesting to see how a client goes through the job spec with a project manager; discussing the construction techniques of the particular items/budgeting/colourways/materials etc.

I cant actually say much more on this or they might shoot me.

In the afternoon after a rather lovely sandwich (cheese and salad on some bouncy white crusty bloomer) - I drew up the AC unit that I measured yesterday, realised I didn't have enough information so measured it again. Twice. Tomorrow I will find out that it's the wrong unit.

Here are some pictures of the AC unit; the tech drawing (I can't have the file) and how the drawing of the AC unit fits into the already built tunnel piece.

I then recieved a brief from Richard for something to do tomorrow AM - See folder (can't publish on the internet).

Industry Placement; Day Two

27th March 2012

Start Time: 8.00am

Yesterday Alex said that I would be working with him today- helping him with costings and ordering.

First of all I learned how to use the MasterCam programme to send information to the CNC router; just the basic principles but I was able to set the start point (0,0) and set the route (controlling the direction of the cut).

I then compiled a spreadsheet of all the items that needed ordering for the Cisco project; changing the existing one that was separated into areas of the set into one that was categorized by items (Paint finishes, flooring etc). I then had to source and order several items, calling up different companies and finding out delivery times and having invoices sent through to Alex.

I also did some colour-matching; changing the design from a fabric clad door to a painted finish (Joel's Wool Serge "Oxford Blue" matches Dulux' "7030-R90B" - incase you wanted to know!!). It's important that colour matching is always done in daylight, as flourescent light inflluenes what your eyes see.

My last job of the day was to measure an AC unit that is going within a set to be drawn up.

Industry Placement; Day One

26th March 2012

Start Time; 8am

As my first day at SetSquare Staging; the first thing I needed was a health and safety induction; ie being shown around the workshops and  the fire exits. I met a lot of the team, and I saw the massive spaces SetSquare has. I was mostly based up in the office with the Draughstman, with him going through his drawings and showing me a few tricks and tips that I did not know!

Trim - right click; no need to select trim lines.

Boundary - faster way of joining lines together to make polylines (click inside the lines you want to group)

Ctrl + Alt+ V - Paste as a block (can edit blocks to repeat the same command)

Quick Select; highlight area or whole drawing; will select colour/layer/linetype

TV Holes are holes that do not affect the build of an object but make it lighter - always with a filleted edge to incerease strength (stronger than a right angle).

You can also import a SketchUp model into AutoCAD to give you a starting point, but it isnt a proper drawing to scale.

I was also introduced to the CNC cutter and also the programmer; it uses MasterCam Files, NC files and also CAD files. You also have upcut blades, downcut blades and dualcut blades for the CNC machine; very expensive routers. The general rule is; MDF cut to the left of the line (clockwise) and ply to the right (anticlockwise).

Materials I was introduced to for the project that is currently being built;

Foamex (like foamboard but denser - used to print graphics)

Dibond - Aluminium coated plastic used for finishing (can be cut into to be bent, no need to mitre)

LED Lightrope - gives a soft glow, flexible. Looks rather lovely.

I had to organise some costings for Alex with a flooring company, counting carpet tiles and phoning through to a company to get a pro-forma invoice emailed to Alex.

Finish Time: 5.15pm

Room Divide

As an idea to divide the room into separate units this would be great. However - impractical. 

Drawing Templates

I have used Photoshop to create templates to draw on top of to sketch ideas without having to re-draw the room over and over again, these are:

"Door" End

"Elevator" End

I also have printed out the basic groundplan drawn up in Autocad to sketch layouts onto, so will have three different veiws of each idea. I'm aware these drawings are pretty poor but speed is of the essence and it will work for it's purpose!

Cad Pad Spec

I have taken pictures of the CAD Pad as reference to my sketches so I can digitally "sketch" my ideas (my hand drawing isn't always so good) and these show things like veiwpoints and the shape of the room which is something to consider.



I have also measured the room (roughly 10m x 5m) and drawn this up in AutoCAD as a basis for my technical drawings.



I think the room is bigger than it appears, and there must be a more effective way of using the space to benefit students and tutors alike.

I need to start drawing up concepts!

Redesigning the CAD Pad

14th March 2012

One of the most exciting parts of my EMP is the opportunity to re-configure the layout of the CAD Pad for renovation over the summer. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and was able to volunteer myself for the technical drawings - but then I was promptly asked to work out the layout and spacing of desks.

Adele is my "go to" tutor for this unit, and sent me an initial email to get started on 12th March;

"Hi Amber

You wanted some guidelines about the CAD Pad. First thing we need to do is to get regs about the distance between workspaces with chair room etc. You can get this off the National Building Regs website. Make sure you have the info for businesses (occasional use) and not home dwellings.

I have spoken to the team and we would like to see different configurations

1. What the space would be like with the desks coming in (therefore facing the tutor) rather then around the edge of the room
2. The same sort of set up but better considered space for each computer (better spacing) especially where the legs go.
3. What it would look like swapping the room around (having the tutor near the door)
4. We would like it to be flexible at one end so we can have small tutorial if possible.

I hope that’s enough to go on for now. Let me know if you would like to meet up.

Adele"

I had a further conversation with Adele and Will - the two tutors who teach the most in the CAD Pad to clear up a few more points. The first and main one was to look up the building regulations that I have to legally comply with and on further research the book "The Metric Handbook" is the one to look at. I need to keep the amount of computers the same, but there will be larger computers bought (18 PCs, 3 Macs, 21 in total). There is no digital groundplan with dimensions available to me so I will need to measure the room out for myself; all I could access was this image:

There is a buget of £50,000 available for the renovation but I do not really need to consider this into my designs. Another thing I don't need to consider is the colour-way as it will be neutral, which is a shame because a theme of "Religious Iconcography with a Saved By The Bell vibe" would have been great.

I will need to submit several configurations for presentation to the tutors with various layouts. There have been several requests by the tutors which I need to oblige; using the pillar to hold some kind of room divide. The possibility of moving the printers up to the door end so that studens can print of work without interrupting any tutorials that may be going on at the "teaching" end. "Teaching" end might also benefit from an interactive smartboard such as the one in the Design Studio.

Talking to Alison about what she feels would benefit her as a technician, a secure space to keep the wacom tablets and styli and potential to keep paper up here as opposed to the office. I feel as a student that it needs to be more organised up here as it gets quite messy. The wires are also massively inconvenient, as is the lack of space at a workstation.

Time to throw some ideas together, put a Spatial Design hat on and get cracking!

Road; Get In and Fit Up

5th March 2012

The get in and fit up for Road was a long, stressful day. We started at university loading up the van with EVERYTHING - like a giant game of tetris trying to make it fit. 

Once we were down at the venue and we had finished unloading the van the challenge of hoisting the fixing the road segments had begin. On the floor we bolted the segments together and stitched a cross-brace to them, to keep them secure. The pin spots were put into place and wired up on the floor as once the pieces were flown they wouldn't be accessible. 

Once we had marked their position in, they were attached to fly bars and flown to the correct height. 

Cross Bracing and attaching to the bars

We flew all three pieces, which was vaguely successful yet extremely daunting. The problems I was facing was extreme sexism from both John and the Lighthouse crew - for example they would ask a question and ignore me when I answered it, needing to hear it from a man. this was infuriating because I knew the set dimensions inside and out and being ignored on account of my gender was not cricket. I had taken to sitting in the auditorium and barking out "up a bit - down a bit" and making my presence known. 

After enough barking they started to realise that I was the most sensible person to talk to as the designer's most common answer was "I don't know.". 

Flying Scenery

Once all the pieces were flown the challenge of inserting the scaffold tube (6m long sections) had begun. This required cooperation from us on the floor, the technical crew controlling the flies, the lighting crew (the lighting bars had to be rigged before flying otherwise they couldn't be flow down).

We started with the curved segment upstage as it was more or less in the right position, but the problem was the pre-drilled apertures weren't the right size because of the angle of the legs. Once they had be widened we could insert the legs 9these ones were only 4m) and position them to the floor. Positioning them on the floor was a Design decision that the designer should have led, but didn't really.

It was a challenge inserting these scaff legs because it involved a team of us holding them, inserting them into the holes (with a jiggle from the flies) and then repositioning the pieces so they still looked right.

Once they were all done a member of the in-house crew braced the scaff legs off against the fly bars to hold them steady. 

The set was in position and looked great, looked exactly like the model box.