COSMIC EXCELLENCE
AIDAN DONNELLY - HOUSE MEMBER
SEMESTER 1
SEMESTER 1
BLOG #1
Week 9/9/19
Today I began work with Lilli and Anahi on designing the House Nova sign for the DTech Lab. We loved the sophistication of Vanguard's sign but didn't want to directly copy them, so we turned to google images in search of inspiration. Eventually we found a design idea we liked: acrylic with a wood background. Our plan is to cut the House Nova logo out of acrylic and then place a sheet of red oak, creating a layered look. To top it off we are going to order mirrored decorative screws to secure the acrylic onto the wood. As things pick up speed, Ifind myself getting very excited at the prospect of designing, creating, and selling products through DTech. I am slightly worried that my other responsibilities, like ASB and Golf, will get in the way, but deep down I know that I am up to the challenge.
BLOG #2
Week 9/16/19
I am in the early stages of my first job, of which I am the lead. My clients are my parents and they have ordered a peace sign shaped sign. Initially I tried to draw the peace sign on my own using a design app on Miller’s iPad, but I quickly realized that I was wasting my time, as I can simply find an image off of the internet with no copyright restrictions. My next task is to make a mockup of the sign, which should not be of much difficulty considering it is a simple peace sign. The most important part will be finding the right color. My clients have suggested some sort of neon color, and I found a piece of acrylic in the lab that is a nice neon yellow color. Although this is a simple job, I think it will take my a bit longer than it would later in the year since it is my first time engraving.
BLOG #3
Week 9/26/19
The laser was not in use today, so we were finally able to cut out our sign from acrilic. After setting up the job in inkscape and clicking print we ran into a problem. The laser carriage would make some quick movements, and then the machine would say that the job was completed, which is was obviously not. After some troubleshooting we asked Mr. Miller for help. and discovered that we simply needed to select actual size in the print settings. We thought we were good to go, but that was not the case. The engraver began the job, but the origin was set wrong and the laser began cutting on the ruler that borders engraving bed. After setting the origin in the correct spot, we were finally able to get the machine to cut in the proper spots. We started the job thinking that our frustrations were in the rearview, but they were not. The intention was to cut a 5.5" x 11.5" rectangle out of the acrilic, but we neglected to close one corner and so one side of the rectangle was not cut. At this point I needed to go to CAP, but I believe Kelly was able to solve the issue. Our next course of action is to attach the acrilic to the red oak board with the screws that arrived today. I think that our sign will look very classy with the oversized, decorative screw covers coupled with the red oak.
BLOG #4
Week 10/2/19
This week was a relatively quiet one as far as DTech class time went. With the time we had left on Thursday, we finalized plans to assemble our house sign. The acrylic issue was solved and the translucent black portion of the sign is now complete. After placing thus piece in front of the sheet of red oak, we realized that it did not look as impressive as we had imagined it would. We decided to revise plans for our sign. Our new plan is to take a piece of acrylic of a different color and cut out the same thing that we did on the black one, but with slightly smaller letters. This way, the sign will have a three dimensional aspect and be more colorful. Since there will still be holes in the sign, we are going to take a solid colored piece of acrylic, probable white, and use it as the background. The finished product will have three colors, and the letters will have a terraced look to them due to the different size letter cutouts. I must say, I am extremely excited to see how this new design looks, as I was pretty disappointed when our original vision did not quite meet our high expectations. At the end of class on the same day, we had Lilli walk us through the process of transferring our portfolios from the google sites that we had created to this page. That way, our portfolios would be easier to access and have a more uniform look. It is quite tricky getting the text to wrap around images (as you can see I am still struggling with it), but that is a minor problem with an easy fix.
BLOG #5
Week 10/7/2019
We used the work time we had this week to keep up with ongoing jobs, and finish up our sign, which will hopefully go up next week. After some debate, we voted as a house to include the white acrylic as the third layer. Although I am excited to have our sign be the first one to be completed and placed on the wall of the pod, I am even more excited at the possibilities of dysimilators, which will allow us to place custom images on a wide variety of objects, including shirts, mugs, and reusable bags. To keep up with our growing list of jobs, we joined trello, which will also allow Mr. Gross to keep tabs on our progress. In the coming weeks, Liz Donnelly, a highly successful Real Estate agent who operates in Ventura county, is going to meet with House Nova to discuss business opportunities for her company, The Liz Donnelly Group. It is a popular practice among Realtors to gift new homeowners with housewarming gifts that bear messages of congratulations, or the Realtor’s logo. If all goes as planned, we will begin making products for The Liz Donnelly Group, which will ideally lead us to new jobs with other Realtors. I am extremely excited at the potential of this meeting.
BLOG #6
Week 10/14/19
This week, many changes took place in the class. As a house, NOVA is on board with Trello, and we have added all of our jobs and made a template for future jobs so that Mr. Gross can create invoices. Additionally, we signed up for Microsoft Teams, which DTECH will begin using instead of Discord. As far as other jobs go, I have several ongoing projects, but everything is under control. I am working with Roy and Jake on a The Power of One themed sign for Captain--we are awaiting a response from her regarding the pricing and design. We plan on checking in with her on Monday. Additionally, I must finalize the design for the peace sign decoration I am creating for my parents, but I must wait until they have returned from vacation, as their spotty reception and the time difference makes consistent communication difficult. On a slightly more exciting note, we have been testing the dissimulator and are very pleased with the early results. As I've mentioned before, the potential of the machine is mouth watering, and I hope we are able to harness it as best as we possibly can.
BLOG #7
Week 10/21/19
This week, I thought back to my sophomore year in DTech survey when I engraved the back of my old phone, and realized that could be a profitable thing to do now. To start I decided to do a test engraving on the back of my phone, which turned out to be a unique process because it has a glass back. At first I was not sure if it would be possible, but I quickly discovered there was a specific process for engraving glass with the Zing. For example, it recommended covering the engraving area with a layer of dish soap to help with the heat, which could potentially melt the glass and distort the engraving. To ensure the image was centered on the back of my phone I measured out the area where it would go and made sure that the image was in that exact are in Inkscape. Then, I cut out a rectangle the size of my phone on a piece of scrap wood so that my phone would be held securely inside the machine. After finishing the engraving, I was quite impressed with the results and hope that this will be a popular request going forward.
BLOG #8
Week 11/4/19
Today I moved along with the Donnelly Peace Sign job, finalizing the design and making the prototype. Initially I made the design in Adobe Illustrator, but when I put that file in Inkscape and tried to bitmap it, it would not bitmap for whatever reason. Due to this odd problem, I was forced to re-make the design in Inkscape. This did not prove to be very difficult once Anahi showed me how to set text to a path. I had done the same thing in Illustrator, now that I have learned how to do it two different ways, I know that I prefer to do it in Inkscape. As far as next steps go, I will be in touch with the client to approve the design, which I have prepared a Sales Order Estimate for. Next Tuesday, Liz Donnelly, the Realtor whom I have written about previously, will be coming in next Tuesday to discuss business opportunities in the Real Estate Industry.
BLOG #9
Week 11/12/19
I have completed my first job, and I happened to be the lead on this job as well. Liz Donnelly, the client, came to speak with the class as I mentioned last week, so I took that opportunity to have her approve the final design so that I could produce the final product, which I already had the file of saved in my Drive. On Wednesday I took that file and made the final product, shown on the left. Production was very easy, as I had already made a prototype and had everything ready to go. I was pleasantly surprised by how the neon acrylic causes the rastered parts to glow when light shines on the sign. When I delivered the sign to the client, it did not have the small hole at the top, as I had spoken with the clients last week and they said that they did not need one. This week they changed their minds, but it was an easy fix. I took it back to the lab and used the drill press to quickly add the hole so that the sign could be nailed into the wall.
BLOG #10
Week 11/18/19
Having completed both of the jobs I was on last week, one on which I was lead and one where I helped in some stages, I began working with my house members on some new projects. The sophomore World History students are close to finishing their Soldier Projects, and there are several awards handed out for them every year. DTech makes the awards, but to improve the final product this year there will be a house joust where all of the houses produce a design for the World History teachers to vote on. I am working with Lillian on ideas for the award, as she is very good with graphic design and I know how to use the machines we will likely use to produce the award, like the laser. On thursday, Anahi and I spent some time brainstorming housewarming gifts for the monthly Real Estate Caravan meetings that Liz Donnelly told us about. If we make some products, like cutting boards or coasters, with generic housewarming messages on them, we may be able to make some sales on the spot at these meetings. I’ll have to look into material costs and design time to get an idea of how much we can sell these for. Although we have a very short week next week because of the Thanksgiving break, I am looking forward to getting started on new projects and maybe producing some prototypes.
BLOG #12
Week 11/25/19
This week we only had one class period, but I was still productive. I worked with Anahi on brainstorming and creating prototypes for items that we can bring to the monthly Real Estate meetings. One of my favorite ideas that we came up with was a key holder for one's doorway or kitchen. We attempted making a prototype, but the laser did not vector deep enough and we had lots of difficulty removing it from the wood that we used. On top of that, the scrap wood was very brittle and small bits would break off as we attempted to remove the holder. We plan on making more items like this, so I will take these failures into consideration and make sure I do not repeat them. As for other projects, I will be helping Hannah and Kelly weed the stickers for Mr. Fitz's Chromebook next week, and I will be helping Lilli produce the soldier project award prototypes.
BLOG #13
Week ?/??/2020
The design for our Soldier Project Design is coming along nicely. To the left is the design for the Best Film award, which I think looks very cool. With that being said, the camera is very detailed, so I have my fingers crossed that it works. I was able to do an engraving of Pink Floyd's album The Wall, so I have some confidence that this design will come out nicely. In this image the design is not complete, as we need to incorporate some World War One imagery into the design. Our best idea so far is to add some barbed wire along the bottom border. As for the other awards, we plan on using images of soldiers, trench clubs, and poppies to tie the theme together. Next week we will finalize the designs and produce our prototypes, and then the final products that we will showcase in the House Joust.
BLOG #14
Week 12/9/19
The House Joust is due next friday, and we are almost done with the designs. After receiving some advice from Mr. Li on our initial designs, we decided to go in a different direction. Anahi designed several awards that feature some sort of image from World War One featured prominently at the top of the award, giving it a somewhat unique shape. In the case of the prototype pictured to the right, as gas mask is used. For the purposes of the house joust we are cutting the designs out of scrap wood, but we plan on offering the english and history departments different wood options when we pitch to them the following week. The other two awards, Best picture and badge of honor, will feature a movie camera and a poppy, respectively. These images will go where the gas mask is on the image to the right, giving the three designs some continuity. I am looking forward to pitching our designs, as I feel that they are high quality and have a good chance of getting us some jobs from the english and history departments.
BLOG #15
Week 12/16/19
With the House Joust pitches complete and my team and I waiting for a response, we began work on a new project that we hope will be fruitful. While Anahi and I were trying to come up with designs for buttons, we thought we should try using the fabric that we se for scrunchies in the button maker. As of then we had only used paper for buttons designs, as that is the recommended material to use. Luckily, using fabric in its place turned out to be a fantastic idea. Some of our designs are pictured on the left. We also tried painting our own designs on white fabric, and that turned out great as well. When we get back from break, the plan is to hopefully begin working on the Soldier project job, make some more button designs, and advertise the button designs.
BLOG #16
Week 1/6/2020
I began working with Jake this week on a coaster job for his parents. The only request was that they be beach themed, so we started by searching for related clipart to get ideas, though we will eventually work with Anahi or Lily on making original designs so we do not violate any copyrighted images. As for the Soldier project, we won the jobs for two teachers, Ms. Schmitt and Mr. Miller. Next week I will help my partners begin production for the awards. This part of the job will not be very difficult at all, as we already have the designs complete and only need to make minor changes, like adding students’ names and changing the name of the teacher. The semester is coming to a close soon, but many jobs are flowing in right now and I look forward to doing all that I can to assist with current jobs and search for new ones.
SEMESTER 2
BLOG #1
Week 1/28/2020
With finals week complete, we began production on the soldier project awards for the teachers whose jobs we had won. Initially, we just placed the wood inside the laser and began the job, but this caused parts of the awards to have burn marks. To remedy this, we covered the wood tiles with painter's tape before placing them inside the machine so that any burn marks would be on the tape rather than the award. Once the awards were cut, we rubbed the awards with mineral oil to give them a nice finish. Now that we have established an efficient process to make the awards, we will be able to get the remaining ones made quickly and easily by next Thursday, when they are due.
BLOG #2
Week 2/3/2020
I have spent all of my time this week trying to get the soldier project awards done by thursday. The original files only allowed us to cut one award at a time, but we were able to squeeze a second on onto the 8 inch by 8 inch square that we are using for cutting. I have finished cutting Mr. Miller’s set of awards and removed the tape, but I still need to complete Mrs. Schmitt’s sets. Cutting the awards out is as simple as pressing a button, but removing the tape is tedious with the intricate designs we have used. At the end of the day, I know we will be able to get the job done in time, and I look forward to working on other ongoing jobs and projects, like the poster for the conference room and the Disneyland House Joust.
BLOG #3
Week 2/10/2020
This week I worked on creating a poster for the cavern, a lounge area that has been recently added at Foothill. At first I was going to cut the poster out of a roll of glossy paper, but Jake taught me how to load a piece of paper that was the size of the poster so that I did not waste any paper. Aside from that quick job, I am going to help Hannah produce t-shirts for the girls water polo team. We are also working on designing a poster using the splash mountain snapshot of Li, Dinkler, and Reeves for the House Joust. So far I think I am on track to complete eight jobs by the end of the semester.
BLOG #4
Week 2/18/2020
The House Joust in which we were tasked with creating a poster to commemorate the XC Disneyland Trip is due this Thursday, and we are almost done with our design. We have been sampling several different filters in Adobe Photoshop to give the poster a unique flair. On top of that, we have chosen a retro futuristic cursive font that goes well with the overall look. At the top we will have the names of the teachers present in the picture spaced by white dots, and at the bottom we will write "XC Disneyland Field Trip 2019." I expect our design to be competitive with the others.
BLOG #5
Week 2/24/2020
Foothill's girls water polo team recently became undefeated league champions, and asked for shirts to commemorate their accomplishment. I was not the one to land the job, but I assisted Hannah and Kelly with production. We used the dissimulator to produce the shirts, so I printed out the design on transfer paper while Hannah and Kelly used the machine. In related news, I have been talking to Liz Donnelly about making a Liz Donnelly Group branded tank top for her to wear to her gym classes. My next steps are to find a tank top that she likes, and then go through the job process.
BLOG #6
Week 3/2/2020
I have spoken with Liz Donnelly and found a suitable tank top for the job. When using the dissimulator, the fabric must be at least 50 percent polyester. The tank tops we ordered (multiple were ordered so that we can do test runs) are one hundred percent polyester. I also obtained the Logo that she wishes to use, which I need to convert to a jpeg before production. Currently I am waiting for them to be shipped, but once they arrive I will make a prototype, make sure Liz approves of the product and signs the sales draft, and then enter production. As far as other jobs go, I am working with my friend Maddie Penny on creating a design to engrave into her phone, and have begun speaking to Liz Donnelly about creating t-shirts for her parents' 50th Anniversary party.