I always say I want open ended prompts until one lands in my lap…. “Make a flashlight”…. damnit.
Here was my brainstorm:
FIRE
puzzle box that turns on light on correct solve
glow stick torture device (rack?)
giant block with one tiny tiny LED
EXPLOSION
glow in the dark fish trebuchet
GIANT HAMMER — bashlight!
One of these won out, mainly due to two factors: 1) I didn’t have time to make a puzzle box or safe explosive and 2) it made me laugh every time I thought about it. PRESENTING (with a name change thanks to Lydia Jessup)….
THE SMASH LIGHT!!!!
So here’s how it all went down.
Went on a lovely dig through the shop scrap, and found a treasure trove of wood! Figured I could just make the handle out of the longest piece I could find, and make a box for the mallet head. The light part wasn’t as important, I left thinking about that until the end :P I was actually considering not having the hammer emit light at all, but rather bring a demo “light bulb” that I could smash dramatically in class.
I finally got to haul my tools from home to the shop; I was really excited to use my bestest friend tool, my impact driver. I was hoping to use it exclusively (besides any cuts) and just quickly smash some screws in (again, didn’t have much time). Unfortunately, I couldn’t drive anything with it without the screws getting bent to shit, either because of the thickness of the wood or the quality of the shop screws, but it’s a problem I don’t think I’ve had with my trusty impact driver, so I was sad.
Resorted to normal drill/driver combo, clamps, and my chalk line tool for quick guidelines.
So I actually had a big moment at the beginning of this project where I spent a whole precious 45 minutes trying to figure out how I was going to make the initial cuts to the wood. Back in L.A., in my backyard shop, this would’ve been no problem, I would’ve taken out my circular saw and bam, done. But I left it behind in California. Though one of the things that excited me the most about coming to ITP was access to the shop machines, I found myself paralyzed before them. If only I had my comfortable hand saws, I wouldn’t have to go use the scary big saws (that I’ve used before, mind you!). It was a big moment, and I’m happy to say I sucked it up and got some help using the three saw machines in the back. Definitely have a while to go before I get good with them though.
Had a lot of trouble getting a straight cut on the band saw (?), but I think it was because the top-stop guard (?) thing wasn’t close enough. Only the last cut I made on that machine turned out perfect. Oh well, I never really aim for pretty projects anyway.
Once the cuts were made, everything else was super quick. Just clamp and drive.
Didn’t measure the box so that everything would be flush — again, wasn’t really focused on pretty, just wanted to sprint to the finish line so I could actually bring a completed project to class.
The light I found was just the biggest light I could find in my component box — luckily I happened to have a 12V portable battery pack that I could tape on. I thought about hiding all the wires, but I kind of liked the exposed look. I also considered putting some sort of screen over the hole (which I didn’t make, I just found that piece in the scrap and decided it was a perfect opening) to project an image or something, but didn’t have time.
Super jazzed about how it turned out — I love big stupid stuff. Glad I could keep accessibility and portability as priorities, I think it’s the perfect tool for a grandma.
