One
of my favorite aspects of my classes is the hands-on projects.
Here
are some that I have either completed or am working on.
Hotbox: Energy Efficient Toaster
As
a part of my Technical Communications course, we were required to
design and construct a product that could be
used to save energy.
My group of three chose to design a toaster that heated the toast in
a completely closed toaster.
The idea behind this design was to
keep all the the heat enclosed inside of the toaster. This way the
toaster would be
able to heat the bread with less wasted energy.
My main purpose in the group was designing and building the entire
toaster minus the heating elements. I came up with the designs on
my own and with the help of the MIT Hobbyshop, I
was able to get
the box completed. The box was made of plywood insulated with
aluminum. The only parts that came
from a real toaster were the
grills for the bread to rest on. Below are a few pictures of the
finished product.
Balsa Raft
In
my 3.094 (Materials in the Human Experience) class, we built a
replica of an ancient Andean raft. The base
of the raft was made
of Balsa logs that were tied together. We constructed the raft in
less than 6 weeks. Below
are a couple pictures of the raft on the
day we first sailed it.
