The first assignment of the Architectural Design 101 module was called the Fly. The period of this assignment was only three days, which in my opinion was very insufficient time to do justice on it.

These few days I stayed late at university to complete this assignment which carries no mark to the whole module - just a pass or fail for this project (which had not much effect on the class)

The assignment:

1. Create a flying device by only using newspaper, strings, masking tape and balsa wood.

2. The flying device can be of any size and any form.

3. The flying device should be able to fly in the length of approximately 12 meters.

4. The flying device should be able to carry an egg on it while it is flying.

5. At least 50 percent of the egg must be exposed to be seen while the flying device is flying.

6. Sketch out some sketches regarding this and explain some concepts behind it.

7. Make a prototype (mock-up) model before the real model (if possible)

8. the flying device should flies with its own method and is on track while flying.

———

We had to work in group of five students and get advice from three senior students.

Luckily we got some good seniors, mainly the one which is amazing in physics (all those aerodynamic, center of gravity principles) which are very important in designing flying devices.

We created the design to be a mix of bird, plane and glider with large wings, little Aerofoil shape, and form of a glider - and that is why our flying device can fly. We needed to maintain the balance and center of gravity of the device too which was hard to do, but we learned a lot from this project.

I wasted a lot of time on it. I wasted a lot of eggs on it (we have done a lot of experiments on it)..wasted a lot of newspaper on it.

This is the look of the flying device my group created:



It was quite successful! The wind flew from the back of our starting point, not much resistance then, and it flies, flies, flies until it ended at the opposite staircase.

But then, it’s time for the real presentation, so people came to the courtyard and watched the show
and this time, we needed to fly from the staircase of the other side (so against the wind, more resistance) and it was interesting to see how different each "FLY" did.

My group was group 7. The first three groups all failed to make it even more than a few feet. My group was the first to make it the required 8m..everybody cheered on the device we made, even though it flew out of its intended track.

And the egg didn’t break at all. Then they gave each team a second chance. The second time for everyone was better, including my group. It actually flew off track again due to the opposite wind, but then it flew back in track over 9m, which was a slight improvement.

It was an interesting first project, but a LOT of work! I spent almost 10 hours in the studio the past 2 1/2 days. I suppose that's to be expected.

I'm very tired and hot after the presentation. Before that, just sketched up some last minute work (because we don’t know earlier that we need to prepare sketches regarding it) and paste it onto the wall, but then the lecturers don’t even look at it -they just don’t care and forget about it. Meaningless! :) I know its a learning tool.

I am enjoying college life a lot. It is so different than high school in a lot of ways. Two weeks in already!

next week, have to start with other assignments..more terrible and challenging assignments ahead!

By the way, here is a picture of my 10 year-old cousin that I babysat for the other night, along with my nephew. I don't have a picture of my nephew with me yet, but I'll get the okay from my sis someday. She's a little uncomfortable sharing her son with a bunch of strangers...can understand it. So here's my cousin Olivia! (all night she was hanging on me like this and asked me why I didn't have a girlfriend ...I told her I like boys. She was like oh, okay like Adam Lambert. :)