Art – Triple Cities Makerspace, Inc.

Project Profile: Magic Wheelchair Costume

Members of the Triple Cities Makerspace recently completed the largest group project undertaken at the Space in quite some time, in collaboration with the Magic Wheelchair organization and an independent artist in Cortland, NY named Crystal Lyon. This project was the creation of a Halloween costume for a child afflicted with cerebral palsy, who lives with his family in Cortland. The child, Jacob Eldred, has never been able to take part in any Halloween festivities due to his condition, although he has always wanted to. His family contacted Magic Wheelchair, an organization which works with local artist, makerspaces, and families of children like Jacob around the United States to create costumes for disabled children according to the children’s preferences and interests, to see what could be done for Jacob. In turn, a Magic Wheelchair representative named David Vogel spoke with Crystal Lyon (as a prominent Cortland artist interested in such activities) and Erik Leonard (as the president of the nearest makerspace to Cortland) regarding the creation of a costume for Jacob; as Erik was then preoccupied with other TCMS affairs, he turned over the matter to long-time TCMS friend Amanda Truin, who acted as project lead and as a liaison between Jacob’s family, Crystal L., David V., and a variety of TCMS members who agreed to work with Amanda to create a costume for Jacob.

Following perusal of the costume-creation process documentation and personal profile of Jacob passed on by Magic Wheelchair, Amanda, Crystal, and Cliff Burger (TCMS vice-president) conducted a more in-depth interview with Jacob and his family regarding Jacob’s interests and likes/dislikes. As one of Jacob’s favorite TV shows is “SpongeBob SquarePants,” Amanda was inspired with the idea of creating a costume combining two iconic objects from the show (SpongeBob’s pineapple home and boatmobile), as it would be a visually striking costume that had not been done by any other Magic Wheelchair team project. This costume idea would incorporate sound clips from the show, LED lights, and feature colorful paintings and decorations evocative of the TV show. After Jacob and his family indicated their approval of this design idea, Cliff obtained measurements of Jacob’s wheelchair, including points where the costume could be attached to the wheelchair, and set about creating a CAD model of a basic structure for the costume.

Following this meeting and the creation of design models and sketches by Cliff and Amanda, they sat down with other TCMS members – including Erik and Ethan Bexley – to decide upon a timeline for construction of the costume and assign design or construction tasks to specific people. Ethan took the time to create a project in Asana (a work-management software
platform) to coordinate task assignments and management among the team members, as well as to facilitate the sharing of files pertinent to this project; this made organizing the initial stages of the project much easier than otherwise, especially when the initial timeline was shortened with the goal of completing the costume by the time of the annual Cortland Halloween parade.

The heart of the costume is its structure; this was a somewhat improvised affair based on Cliff’s design models, constructed with the goal of being strong yet lightweight and made from inexpensive and easily-obtainable materials. The structure of both the pineapple and boat portions of the costume is largely made of PVC pipe, lightweight foam sheets cut to size, and chicken wire, all held together with various adhesives, zip-ties, and screws. The pineapple even has an unexpected element in the use of a hula hoop to help form its rounded shape! Two major challenges encountered during the structural construction process were the organic shapes of the pineapple and boat, being non-conducive to construction with building materials intended for rectangular objects, and incorporating the mounting points assemblies of and access to the wheelchair into the structure in such a way that the costume could be attached / detached to and from the wheelchair with relative ease. These challenges were overcome using innovative construction techniques including bending PVC pipes into permanent curved shapes using a heat gun and sand dispersed inside the pipes to prevent excessive heat buildup in any one place, which would result in structural weaknesses, and making use of chicken wire as a structural element for the pineapple (as a pineapple is a very unconventionally-shaped structure). The makers even 3D printed fittings for the PVC pipes when conventional sizes would not work for what was needed. Many long hours were spent acquiring materials, assembling, and reworking the structure during this phase of the costume’s construction.

Preliminary boat structure (before additional bracing was added)

Both structures temporarily connected for fitment purposes

Pineapple structure being covered with foam

While the structure was being assembled, Adam Biener worked autonomously to devise the electronic circuitry and software used to provide LED lighting and sound effects for the costume. He created, tested, debugged, and reworked the circuits, controls, and software until it was fully functional, tailoring the sound effects used to Jacob’s specific preferences and creating a special control handle which Jacob could manipulate to activate the lights and sound effects. The electronics assemblies were mounted in the rear of the boat’s structure, and the LED lights were attached to the pineapple structure, with final wiring being done once the two structures were connected to one another. Enormous credit is due to Adam here for successfully undertaking almost the entirety of this portion of the project on his own, with some additional help from John Sheak.

Once the structures were largely complete, Amanda began decorating the pineapple and boat with help from several other TCMS members (credited at the bottom of this blog post). The pineapple and boat structures, each covered with foam, were sanded and painted with several layers of primer and paint, with the pineapple’s foam having been scored with knives to have the texture of an actual pineapple. Special painted highlights in lighter colors were added to various portions of the pineapple, and the scored foam was shaded to give it the appearance of depth and realistic coloring. Foam leaves were cut, shaped, and painted before being attached to the top of the pineapple, and plastic decorative vegetation resembling seaweed was
strewn around the leaves and top of the pineapple to give it the appearance of having been underwater for some time. Amanda painted the interior of the pineapple extensively with various floral and other TV show-appropriate decorations so that Jacob would have cool things to look at when inside the costume, and feel like he was inside SpongeBob’s “real” pineapple! Amanda and Crystal added a final painting element to the boat following the first fitting with Jacob’s family, as Crystal had been assigned the autonomous task of carving the logo for the show out of foam and painting it for the purpose of having an additional visual element on the sides of the boat as well as having some color to liven up the boat.

The pineapple structure, being scored and decorated

More decorating of the pineapple structure, and fitting the LED strips to the structure’s openings

Completion of the costume by the revised timeline was achieved after many long evenings and weekends by everyone involved. Amanda coordinated test-fitting of the costume to the wheelchair with the family and with help from Erik and Cliff; the costume was introduced to Jacob on the day of the parade, and it was attached to the wheelchair with Jacob inside the costume
before he and the family took part in the parade, accompanied by Amanda and Crystal. The costume won first place in the family costume category for the parade, which meant an enormous amount to the family as it was Jacob’s first time participating! The costume remained with the family afterwards; the pineapple was mounted over Jacob’s bed, and his favorite bean bag was put inside the boat as a place for him to watch episodes of “SpongeBob” in! Jacob and his family felt very cared for and happy as a result of all of this, which was the main overall goal of this project and of the Magic Wheelchair organization as a whole.

Assembling the costume supports on Jacob’s wheelchair

Securing the boat portion of the costume to the wheelchair

….and the costume has been assembled on the wheelchair!

Crystal and Amanda with Jacob in the finished costume, in the parade!

All in all, this was a very special project that ended up coming off very well for everyone involved despite the logistical, construction, and timeline challenges encountered along the way, and the lack of familiarity by various project participants with the kinds of design and construction tasks required of them. Special thanks to Amanda Truin for her mature and cool-headed project coordination and for the many long hours spent with every phase of the project, especially the painting and decorating portion; Cliff Burger for making accurate structural models and contributing to the costume’s structural construction, Ethan Bexley for organizing the project
efforts via Asana and for his invaluable contributions to the structure’s construction; and Erik Leonard for helping with every phase of the costume’s construction and handling logistics of costume transportation and setup. As well as these project members, the following members also helped out with ideas, construction, painting, logistics, and/or other work to make this project a success (sorted in descending alphabetic order of last name):

Eric Adler
Adam Biener
Zach Brown
Gary Alan Dewey
Bill Dikeakos
Leslie-Morgan Frederick
John Sheak
Stephen P. Welte

Photos supplied throughout this blog post are the property of and have been supplied by the various TCMS members and friends credited throughout the blog post. Please contact the TCMS board before using any of the photos here for any purpose outside of this blog post.

Project Profile: Plasma-Cut Copper Sign by Yevgeniy Parfilko

Rasa Spa in Ithaca recently opened a new location in Watkins Glen, and they asked Makers in the general area for help in making a custom sign, which would have their name and logo made out of sheet metal with a warm copper finish. I reached out to them, and they were happy to work with me.

My original approach was to cut out the logo and letters out of 24 gauge aluminum with a nibbler, but the marketing director at Rasa wanted to have a sturdy, long lasting sign. So I asked Cliff Burger, the current TCMS Vice President, if it would be possible to use the plasma cutter at TCMS for this purpose, and he helped me get my letters cut from 2 sheets of 16 gauge steel.

Next, I had to create a textured copper finish that would also look both worn and warm. So I went hardware store hunting, and luckily found copper sheet flashing, which was significantly cheaper than copper plating or solid copper. I glued the copper to the metal letters and applied epoxy to the edges to prevent fraying of the combined materials.

Finally, I rubbed the copper down to create an imprinted texture, and applied a patina using a sulfur-based aging solution from a hobby store. Now it was time to mount the sign! I did not want to spend a lot of time out in the cold, so mounted modified wire crimps on standoffs to the back of the letters. That way, all I had to do was put three screws into the signboard, and my letter would snap right on. All in all, I spent two hours outdoors, most of which was spent climbing up and down a freezing ladder.

All in all, the project came out to about $150 worth of materials, which is pretty good for a custom sign made out of textured copper! You can easily spot Rasa Spa’s new location on N Franklin St in Watkins Glen.

Photo Credits:
All photos courtesy and property of Yevgeniy Parfilko.

Project Profile: Summer Savoyards Set-Building for “Arsenic and Old Lace”

James “Evil Jim” Ulrich and Mary Donnelly are two long-standing members of the Binghamton musical drama troupe Summer Savoyards, which has been putting on plays in various local venues since 1961. The Savoyards’ latest production of the beloved dark comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace” will be hosted in the Bundy mansion in downtown Binghamton on the first two weekends of April, and Jim and Mary have been building set pieces for it in the wood shop at the Makerspace!

Summer Savoyards chose to put on “Arsenic” because its darkly hilarious story appealed to the Savoyards’ executive board as well as several regular participants in the Savoyards’ productions. Savoyards’ main focus has traditionally been recurring adaptations of various Gilbert and Sullivan plays, but everyone involved felt like trying to adapt something different, and to make use of a new venue in the Bundy mansion annex (in cooperation with some acquaintances there who wanted to promote Bundy as an events venue). Mary volunteered to be the play director, Jim volunteered to take charge of set design and construction, and everyone set about preparing for the show.

Mary wanted to have the show provide a more immersive than usual experience with respect to the audience, both for the sake of providing a fresh take on the play and because of the spacial limitations of the venue at Bundy. As such, Jim set about creating a seating layout for the venue which allowed for a reasonably sized audience to sit within a space arranged with some minimalistic set pieces designed to invoke the feel of a late Victorian living room (i.e., the set of the play), along with several pieces of Victorian furniture (a love seat, a china cabinet, etc.) sourced from Savoyards participants. Jim created or modified designs for several mock door and window frames in the modelling program SketchUp with elaborate detailing reminiscent of the Victorian era, as shown in the screenshots below, based on various Victorianesque design ideas he found through online research. Once he’d created and refined these designs, based on feedback from the other members of Savoyards with respect to physical size and layout, he printed them out with their corresponding bills of materials and cut lists, and took them to the TCMS wood shop to build them.

The Makerspace has been used by Jim for building set pieces for past Savoyards productions, but this production involved the largest utilisation of the wood shop for building set pieces yet. Jim, with the help of Mary, Amanda Truin, Eric Adler, and a few odd volunteers, had to build a full padded window seat with a window frame, five additional window frames to be suspended from the ceiling (including one created specifically cover a whiteboard in the annex), and several mock doorway frames. They had $500 to purchase materials to build these set pieces (plus a few additional material donations from Jim), and five weeks to build everything using the tools at TCMS plus a few additional ones provided by Jim. These tools included a table saw and sawhorses, a router, a screw gun, a pneumatic stapler, a multitool, a body grinder, a jigsaw, a chop saw, and various paintbrushes.

Most of the set pieces were built according to the original SketchUp designs, but there were a few modifications made along the way for various reasons. For example, the window seat’s lid was given an additional layer of 1/2” plywood to strengthen it, as various people would be sitting on it throughout the play and the original lid was deemed insufficiently rigid. This lid’s hinges were also extensively modified in several ways to make them squeaky for effect, including treating them with acid and a degreaser, having their pins hammered further into the hinges than typical, and leaving one end of the hinge looser than the other so that excessive flexing would occur. Jim further decided to modify the lintels on the door frames by adding 3/4” pine routed into strips for edge moldings, in addition to the existing frame moldings, to make them even more fancier. Final adjustments were made to the constructed set pieces to accommodate their mounting places in the venue (e.g., providing surfaces for clamps to be fitted to hold the set pieces in place). Finally, long-time Savoyards seamstress Julia Adams volunteered to build a cushion for the window seat and curtains for the window frames.

These set pieces are currently installed in the Bundy museum annex, and you can see them in person on the first two weekends in April when the Savoyards company puts on “Arsenic and Old Lace”! As well as the TCMS members and friends already named, long-term Makerspace members Gary Alan Dewey and Leslie-Morgan Frederick are playing two different roles in the play itself. Come and check it out!

https://www.summersavoyards.org/events

Picture credits:
All photos and drawings are provided and owned by “Evil Jim” and Mary Donnelly.

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Project Profile: Maker Robots Mural

Triple Cities Makerspace has been established on the premises at State Street in Binghamton for over a year now. A number of people have devoted an enormous amount of time, effort, materials, and money towards fixing up the building and grounds, and outfitting the facilities with everything it would need to allow people to work on lots of different kinds of projects, from woodworking and welding to electronics and sewing. One important part of this process which has sometimes been overlooked is the furnishing and decorating of the premises; as the success of the Makerspace depends on its forming a dedicated community of enthusiastic creative people, it is important to have the building feel like a safe, comfortable, and welcoming place to be. To that end, Makers have made a concerted effort to paint parts of the Makerspace in warm and vibrant colors, and to donate artistic works or decorations to its rooms.

One of the most prominent artistic projects at the Makerspace to date is the large mural in the main room featuring two robots on a background of several dozen floppy disks. This artistic piece was the brainchild of Leslie-Morgan Frederick, a long-time contributor to and past board member of Triple Cities Makerspace. She was originally asked to create the mural by Drew Lacock, one of the founding members of the Makerspace, as a showpiece highlighting the artistic talent and potential of the TCMS community; he suggested a fan art painting of “Rock’em Sock’em” robots, which Leslie-Morgan extended to the idea of “makerbots”. The intent of this project was to highlight the idea of having a diverse set of people from all walks of life and with different levels of creative experience meet at the Makerspace to work on various projects and to share ideas, knowledge, and creative techniques with one another. As such, Leslie-Morgan’s idea was to have the mural feature two robots reaching out towards one another, not with fists, but with tools to make things – together. The floppy disks were used as a base for the mural to add the idea of the use of technology in making, both old and new.

With the basic idea of the mural conceived, work on it had to wait until the main room’s walls were drywalled and painted, which was done in the final months of 2015 and beginning months of 2016. At that point, the floppy disks were selected by color from a large cache of disks that had been donated to the Makerspace, and were then installed using liquid cement on a wall in the main room chosen for its proximity to the Makerspace’s main entrance and visibility throughout the room. As the rectangular mural base comprised some ~200 disks, arranged from black into progressively lighter and brighter shades of primary colors, this work took a couple of evenings and a lot of work on the part of Leslie-Morgan and a dedicated group of Makers to complete.

She then enlisted the help of her friend and fellow artist Amanda Truin, whose work can be seen on the 2016 Makersgiving potluck dinner invitations. The two artists collected paintbrushes, paints, and a stepladder from the Makerspace’s existing supplies, and set aside a Saturday just after the New Year to create the mural. After a quick discussion with Amanda regarding the intended purpose of the work, Leslie-Morgan quickly sketched out a basic draft of the mural with a pen on a piece of scrap paper, and they set to work together.

The resulting mural took shape as a completely collaborative and organic effort of Leslie and Amanda, whose artistic training and close friendship made the process of working on the project together very easy and fun. They were able to freely communicate various ideas and inspirations for the piece as a whole or in part on the fly, and to criticize and praise each other’s contributions respectfully. They each painted one of the robots after Amanda drew an outline of the entire project, with Leslie-Morgan’s robot (on the left of the piece) having a more illustrative style while Amanda’s robot (on the right of the piece) took on more of a cartoonish, 3-D appearance. Their different artistic styles ended up merging very well throughout the daylong marathon of painting, which was broken up by munching on crepes prepared by fellow Maker Ethan Bexley and the occasional dancing to background music! Room was also made for instantaneous or future additions to the project, such as the golden cube between the robots which is suggestive of a “Mario box”.

The completed mural is a highlight of the Makerspace facilities which makes the building feel much more homelike and comfortable, and is frequently commented favorably on by visitors to the Space. Hopefully it will serve as inspiration for many future artistic creations and collaborations by the local Makerspace membership, and will long serve to commemorate the spirit of communal Making!