Over the past few weeks, I have been creating a project that I could present in the Winter Exhibition. I learned a lot in this process, like how I created my project, or how I should present my project.

Brainstorm:

For my box, I had to create an artifact from the movie “Avatar”, that reflected my theme statement, which I also made off of the movie “Avatar”. My theme statement is, “ More often then not, people will disregard the value and importance of nature for money.”. I made this theme statement because you can see in “Avatar”, the negative relationship between the humans, and the Navi people(the indigenous creatures to the land). After I created my theme statement, I designed an artifact from the movie that I thought connected well with the statement. I choose to make “Home Tree” fallen over, after the humans had cut it down. I thought this would work really well with my theme statement because the humans cut down the tree for a very valuable mineral underneath it, even though they knew it was super important. Now that I had an idea of what I wanted to make, I started actually building it. 

Creating:

I started making my project by building the artifact; Home Tree. I used styrofoam to create a base model for the tree and stump, by cutting up different pieces of foam and gluing them together. Then I used natural dry clay to cover the styrofoam, starting to make it look more like a tree. The clay added curves, aswell as texture. I did the same process with the stump, but it took me lots of try’s because I couldn’t get the shape right. After finally getting a stump I thought looked good, I started painting both pieces brown. Then I added the fake moss, which was used as leaves on the tree. Now that I finished the artifact, I made the box. I used wood planks, which I cut to proper size, and then screwed together. After making the two most important parts, I connected them together. I did this by hanging the tree and and stump with fishing line from the top and bottom of the box. I had drilled holes into the top and bottom of the box so I could put the fishing line through. Then I tied the fishing line around the tree, after tying the other end to a part of the box. I did this to the stump once, and the tree three times, so both would stay in place, and hopefully not move/swing. As a final touch, I used leftover moss to cover the bottom of the box, adding a more natural feel to it.  

The Presentation:

I had by project done, now I had present it. I presented at the winter exhibition, where anyone could come look at my work. Before I presented it, I had to do a few things. The first thing was planning my room. I had to turn my room into a theme; an abandoned planet. My group worked really well together to gather ideas on how we could do this. We decided to: cover the walls with black paper, have a path on the floor that looked like rocks, and have the door look like a time travel machine. We also had to bring food and drinks, and have an engaging activity for the guests. For food and drinks we pick coke and ice tea, which were supposed to look like polluted water, and brownies+cookies, which were supposed to look like pieces of dirt. For the engaging activity, we chose to have a pile of garbage which we asked guest to pick up, and put in a garbage bin. At the bottom of the pile, there was a flower, representing that we can still make a positive impact, and save the planet. Everyone worked really hard, until we had a room that we liked. We could only start decorating a few hours before presenting, but we got it done. Each person had a spot planned for them, I was somewhere in the middle. I had table, which I had my box project placed on. Then guests started coming, so I started sharing information about my project, like how I made it, or the idea behind it. I had to be very interactive, because most people did not come up and ask me questions, instead I had to start talking, which felt awkward at times, but I slowly got used to it. I did that from 5:30 to 8, so I spent lots of time sharing my project, which I tried to do differently each time.

Lessons Learned:

Having done this project, I have learned the following: I should be more confident it my ideas, I shouldn’t spend to much time planning my project rather then working on it, time management is something I should work on, communication in a team is very important, and how I should be more appreciative of feedback.

This project was a fun and new experience for me, which I am looking forward to doing again.

My Final Piece: