Metaphorically Speaking…

Another project, finished! This project was all about revolutions. Just like the last project, frankenstuffies, I only learned about one revolution. I chose to do The Easter Rising, and I think that was the best choice. The Easter Rising was the revolution in 1916 that took place in Ireland. The primary reason that the revolution happened was because Ireland was a part of Britain, and wanted to become an independent country. They started a 7 man military, and fought for their country. Although they weren’t independent until 1922, The Easter Rising was a big part of why Ireland is its own country today.

While researching the revolution, we also learned about a man named Crane Brinton. He developed a theory the revolutions have 4 stages. If you would like to know more about him, read this post! The theory works better with the American and French Revolution, but the theory does not line up with the Easter Rising. Due to the fact that the Revolution was only 6 days long, and how it started and ended, Crane Brinton’s theory did not apply to the Easter Rising.

On to the project. A metaphor machine is a Rube Goldberg Machine, but everything that happens is a metaphor for a part of the revolution. For example, if a ball hits dominoes, it could stand for one person winning against an army, knocking them down. Also, our machine needed to be steampunk. Steampunk is a genre/aesthetic the combines the Victorian era with futuristic technology and vintage style. Starting the machine was difficult since we were clueless on what to do. We started off by creating a full sized sketch of the machine. After we had finished, we had an idea of what our machine would look like.

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We started off by spray painting everything either gold, copper, or silver, all of which are very steampunk colours. Afterwards, we built and created all of the components we needed to make the machine. Each component of the machine is a metaphor, and it was hard at first to figure out what each metaphor represented. After a long day of brainstorming, we had all 6 of our metaphors figured out. Each metaphor is described in detail in the video below.

Also, did I mention that we were also reading the book Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld. It is the first book of three, but this book is completely steampunk themed. It features mechanical beasts and genetically modified animals. The book is set in the past, yet has more advanced technology than us. It’s crazy and amazing, and I highly recommend. We read the book to get a feel for what steampunk is, and have a better understanding of it. Throughout the book, we filled out role sheets, just like we did with the Martian. I enjoyed completing these work sheets since they were more entertaining than the previous ones. This book really helped with the coming together of the machine.

It took over a month to finish this project. We finished the project the day before winter break, and I am happy it didn’t go on after break. We put so much hard work into this project, and also created a video. The first draft of this video is pretty rough, and I have to say we could of done a lot better, but that’s what drafts are for. Our final draft is definitely better, as there is such a big contrast and difference between the two, in a good way. I think that we needed to have drafts, because the first one sounds like it was filmed in a microwave.

If I were to do anything differently next time, I would definitely put more time into the planning. Also, we have a balloon pop in our machine, and I definitely would not do that again. Many problems were caused from that. Another thing that I would do is make sure that everything is close enough together to work consistently. This project has definitely taught me to plan ahead, and know what I’m doing. I am excited that this project is over, and I am ready for Christmas Break!