Cardboard Chair Design
The goal of this assignment was to make a chair that could support 150 pounds or a chair that can support a 4 year old child made entirely out of cardboard and nothing else, meaning no glue, tape, etc. This seemed really tough yet once designed it was a piece of cake. So we thought. We designed a full size chair that turned into a two person couch. To provide good support we focused as much as we could on the seat, where the pressure/compression would matter the most. From there we brought all the pieces together at the headrest of the chair to also bring more stability, but to the back of the chair instead. We made the trade-off of aesthetics for strength in the structure. This means that may not have been the best looking chair, but it was very strong. Lets face it, every item on the market of any product has its trade-offs. So, this trade-off we felt like would help the chair sell in stores, not just look pretty in the window.
Key Concepts
Tensile Strength - The resistance of a material to breaking under tension
Compressive Strength - The resistance of a material to breaking under compression
Center of Gravity - A point from which the weight of a body or system may be considered to act. In uniform gravity it is the same as the center of mass
Structures - The strengths of the support systems
Compressive Strength - The resistance of a material to breaking under compression
Center of Gravity - A point from which the weight of a body or system may be considered to act. In uniform gravity it is the same as the center of mass
Structures - The strengths of the support systems
Reflection
Throughout the entire project, I felt like I learned some good lessons that will help me as I go on throughout my high school career. Some of these lessons include but are not limited to: time management, focus, and not throwing together a bad project last minute. Time management is in there because we didn't use the time we had to build a cardboard chair to the maximum. Although we were focused on the programming, we could've stepped away from the programming for a few minutes and done some of our cardboard chair. Do to this lack of time management, we ended up throwing together a few pieces of old cardboard from a dumpster and turning it in as a our final project. This was a challenging project. That is the benefit of the doubt I will give myself and our group.