Project Introduction
For my Eagle project, I am building an outdoor “Reader’s Nook” at the Princeton Montessori School. The objective is to give the students and teachers a quiet and peaceful outdoor sanctuary to read a book or to have small meetings. The Reader’s Nook will consist of 4 Adirondack Chairs, 2 tables and a small garden. It will also introduce an interesting piece of American history and beautify the middle school grounds.
Gardening Session Thursday Jun 6, 2013
The planting was on Thursday Jun 6 during recess. My middle school friends helped me with the planting. We planted the plants in pre-selected spots. Using the EDGE method (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide and Enable), I first explained how deep and wide the holes had to be. Then I dug a hole and planted a flowering plant. I guided the students with small corrections while they planted. Soon they were able to do it on their own, without any further assistance. After school, I returned with another student to cover the area with mulch and to clean up. The following week, I returned to the site to install a porous watering hose around the plants.
Total Hours: 11.0 Woodworking Sessions
Tracing, Cutting, Sanding and Inventory Phases
Session 1 – Saturday June 8, 2013
During the first session, we went out in Mr. Reed’s truck to buy materials and supplies to build the chairs and tables. We bought cedar boards at Lowe’s and supplies at Home Depot – both vendors offered generous discounts to support my project. We then went to Mr. Reed’s workshop and started preliminary cutting for the table legs. To make the legs sturdy, we glued and nailed two pieces together and put them in a clamp to cure for a few days. We also reviewed the chair design templates to plan out how we are going to trace the designs to the boards in the next session.
Total Hours: 15.5 Session 2 – Saturday June 15, 2013
This week we did much of the sanding needed on the frame of the tables. We cut and sanded all of the pieces that we needed for both tables. We took the glued legs and sanded away excess glue and made sure that none of the pieces had sharp edges. Paul also worked on tracing the design templates for the chairs. We then glued the pieces together and nailed them to make sure that they are sturdy. We had finished the frame so all we have to do next week is sand and attach the top slats.
Total Hours: 18.5
Session 3 – Sat Jun 22, 2013 During today’s session we finished sanding the top slats for the tables and attached them to the frame. That meant we had completed the tables. We continued tracing the designs for the chairs and cut out the designs. We were sanding the pieces as they were traced and cut. By the end of the session the back slats and leg pieces were cut and sanded.
Total Hours: 18.0
Session 4 – Sun Jun 23, 2013
During today’s session we finished tracing the pieces needed for two of the chairs. We then sanded all of the pieces needed for one of the chairs. The sanding took a very long time to complete. During the session we figured out that the plans were very complicated and needed much longer than previously thought. I hope to have the pieces for all of the chairs finished next weekend. At the end of the day, I led the scouts in cleaning up and organizing the workshop and vacuuming the floor.
Total Hours: 21.6
Session 5 – Saturday June 29, 2013
During today’s session we completed tracing and cutting out all of the pieces needed for all of the chairs. We also finished the sanding needed for 1.5 chairs. We also figured out that the chairs needed to have extra temporary supports for the arms during the building process so we cut them out. During tomorrows session I hope to have the pieces of all of the chairs sanded and ready to put together.
Total Hours: 19.2 Session 6 – Sunday June 30, 2013
During today’s session we finished sanding the pieces for all of the chairs. It took up a huge amount of the session to finish the sanding. We put all of the pieces into piles to see is any pieces were missing. We took the list of all of the pieces needed for each chair and checked off the pieces in each pile. We found out that a couple pieces were missing that we traced and cut out. During the next session, I hope to build the first chair. Since we will be taking a 6 week break for summer vacations, we spent the last half hour organizing and cleaning the work shop and vacuuming with R2D2.
Total Hours: 18.6
Session 7 – Sunday August 25, 2013 During this session we started assembling Chair 1. We were able to assemble the basic frame. The basic frame included the legs and a couple of the seat slats. We spent much of the session working out how to attach the arms and the frame together because some of the holes were not matching up. Also the middle brace for the seat back slats started to split and we used a nail gun to stop the splitting. We spent the last few minutes of the session going over the next steps and the remaining schedule.
Total Hours: 14.0
Session 8 – Sunday September 8, 2013
Delivery – Sunday October 20, 2013
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