Yesterday was the day I decided that the adventures that I'm having as part of school are far too awesome to not be shared. Hence, this blog. Yes, yet another irregularly updated blog to be followed.
I am enrolled in a summer term design/build studio at the University of Oregon that focuses on horticultural building systems; specifically green walls and roofs. We were tasked with creating a green roof or wall system that could be modular or reproduced. You can read all about it here.
My team chose to design, fabricate and install a modular ceramic tile. As part of that we chose to extrude our tile pieces using an aluminum die. Sadly, the extruder we have access to is only 5" wide at its widest aperture. This meant that we had to plan to extrude half of a tile at a time, ultimately meaning that we needed 6 dies cut. These dies were cut from an 1/8" aluminum sheet, a material that could not be cut cleanly on campus. So e-mails were passed, phone calls were made and ultimately we were able to get access to a plasma cutter cnc table at Willamette High School (they have a wicked awesome metal shop!).
Here is the video awesomeness:
So, for my inaugural adventure, I present to you: PLASMA CUTTING AWESOMENESS.
You'll notice that the sparks are blue. Aluminum throws blue sparks when its cut, while steel throws yellow-white sparks. Cool, right?
Days like that are why I love what I'm studying.
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