Week 5

On Thursday, April 24th, 2014 we went into the city to go to Blick Art Store to buy some materials for the 3D model. We were only able to purchase the spheres, rods, and spray paint. We still have to decide what to use to model the entrance, supports, and foundation. At first it was difficult to figure out what the materials dimensions in order to scale it correctly, also Blick did not have the correct rod diameter. So on Friday, Candace went to the art store on the Friday to gather the correct rods. On Monday, Candace also went to the machine shop to prepare the rods for Tuesday's meeting.

Meeting on April 30th, 2014

Before lab day, we met up on Tuesday, April 30th, 2014. During this time, we began building the 3D model of the Atomium. The spheres and rods were first spray painted the materials in metallic, as shown below. Josh, Candace, and Yiping worked on the model and Daniel continued working on the Sketchup.

Spray-Painted Foam Sphere

It was difficult to figure out how to get the exact points. So in order to determine where the poles are, we used a piece of tape and measure since we did not have a clothing tape measurer. The two pictures below show what was drawn on the tap to measure.

This was used to determine the 45 degree angle

This was used to determine the holes on the spheres where the poles go

We only constructed about half of the Atomium structure. With 5 spheres and 7 rods.

Model Progress

During lab, we started to look at the final report and also updated our Project Libre. Our Sketchup drawing is almost complete, but has not finished since it is difficult to angle to spheres in the program a certain way. Our visual analysis has not started yet, because the drawing is still waiting to be completed in order to easily import the file onto visual analysis. For this week, our goal is to finish the drawing, begin the visual analysis, and continue building the model and figure out what should be used to model the other parts of the structure.

Here is our progress so far: