Practical 3

Practical 3: Cardboard Joinery

For this week’s practical, we learnt the different types of joinery with cardboard (specifically corrugated board) that will come in handy when prototyping with cardboard!

We were taught the following joinery techniques:

• Flanges – short flaps of cardboard perpendicular to the bottom surface of the piece that allow it to be secured to a surface.

• Slotting – cutting out a short section of the cardboard to allow another piece to be inserted in a perpendicular fashion, securing the two pieces together.

• Slots and Tabs – used to join two pieces of cardboard with one placed on the edge of the other. A short protruding flap similar to a flange is cut out on one piece, while a hole is cut out in the place where it will be inserted in the other piece.

• Gusset – right-angled triangular pieces used to support a flat piece that is slanted at an angle from the surface.
  

• Hole-punch – using a hole puncher to allow a fastener to be placed to be used as a pivot for a rotating or spinning piece.

• Scoring – doing a light incision on the surface of the cardboard to make the piece of cardboard easier to bend or fold.

• Bending – as the name suggests, we used this technique to slightly bend the cardboard to a desired angle, usually with the help of scoring so that we make the cardboard bend at the angle we want it to.

• Creasing – folding the piece of cardboard and returning it to a flat state to create a line of weakness on the cardboard to make it easier for us to bend, cut or score.

 

Using these techniques, we were tasked to create a board showcasing these joinery techniques, with the added challenge of combining two or more techniques in one piece! Here is our attempt, albeit a scuffed one, but we were able to combine four techniques in one piece which we call The Colosseum (pardon us mistaking a coliseum for The Colosseum...)!

Aside from this group challenge, we were also tasked to form a winged unicorn (with wings that actually flap), also with cardboard! This was an individual task and each of our experiences are shown below:

Individual Work:

🦄 Unicorn Project 🦄

Zhi Wei

First, I took up all the pieces of unicorn from the cardboard.📷

Then, I separated the pieces into two parts which are the head part and body part. Besides, I noticed that most of the joinery of this project were slot and tab. I started joining the head part and then the body part. In the end, I joined the head part and body part together. A completed cardboard unicorn was done. 👏

After completed joining the unicorn, my next task was to figure out how to make the unicorn’s wings flap. 🧠💭

Idea 👀:

 

💬

I used a rubber band to tie the joiners of the two wings together. I made used of the remaining cardboard to cut a 12cm×1cm strip. The strip was folded in two and then hanged on the tied of wings. After that, I used sellotape to stick together the end of the strip. Well, a simple set-up was done. 🙌

Let’s watch a video on how the wings work 🎬:

🙇 Mechanism 🔍:

When I pull down the strip, the force is acted downward, hence result on the wings will move forward. On the contrary, when I am not pulling down the strip, there is no force acting on it, hence the wings will move back to the original state. Keep repeating these two actions will make the unicorn’s wings flap. That's how it works~ 

 💙💙💙💙💙💙

Zelene🦄

Firstly, I took all the parts of the unicorn from the cardboard piece and assembled it.

I first assembled the head,

Then the body, 

Finally the finished unicorn, 

💬

When assembling the unicorn, I noticed that most of the joinery was tabs and slots, which made it easy to join the various parts to create the body, the head and to join the two parts together.  

🧠

Next, it was to find a way to to allow the wings of the unicorn to flap and return to its original position. 

Hence, my idea: 

Using a rubber band, I attached it to the front and the wings, followed by a string attached to the wings as well which extends all the way to the back. When the string at the back is pulled, the rubber bands attached to the wings would move backwards, and it would create some tension on the rubber bands, When the string is released, the rubber band would the relax, returning to its original position. This is how the wings of the unicorn flaps. 

Here is a video to see how the wings work📹

Uzair’s Unicorn

When I took out the individual pieces from the main cardboard, I was intrigued as to how such a simple mechanism was able to produce such a beautiful product. First I assembled the head.  The head used a “slot and tab” method of joinery as there was an extended piece of cupboard coming from the neck of the unicorn and a hole that was premade so that that extended piece was able to fit through to secure the piece. I then connected the horn and the mane of the unicorn. Both of which used the same “slot and tab” method of joinery.

I then assembled the body. it also used the same joinery method both at the front and back of the body.

 

After that I connected the minor parts of the unicorn such as the wings, tail and also pieced the head onto the body. which also uses “slot and tab” method. And the finished product is….:

 

 

But wait, its not over, I had to think of a wat to make this beautiful unicorn fly. – by flapping its wings.

 

All I used was a piece of rubber band. I cut a slit into the extended portion of the tail so that it is easier for the rubber band to slide in and catch the rubber band.

 

Then, I fitted the rubber band between the two extended parts of the wings in the body.

 

In order to move the wings, i used my fingers to pushed the extended part of the wings forward. The rubbber band will then pull it back to its starting position. Here is the finished product with the wings moving !!  

Rydrew's Winged Unicorn

To build my winged unicorn, I first started by removing all the parts from the cardboard frame they came in.

Then I started the assembly with the head. When I was folding the creases for the head, I noticed that there were slots and tabs present, where the tab will be inserted into the slot to hold the piece with the slot in place. This lets the cardboard hold its shape and not fold back out again!

I then removed the punched-out cardboard for the eyes and inserted the horn to complete the head. (I forgot to attach the mane, but I did so after attaching the head to the body.)

I then continued on assembling the body of the unicorn, and I noticed too that there were many of these indented lines. I found that they were similar to scoring the cardboard, as the reduced amount of material along this line made it easier to fold.

I folded along these lines and removed the punched-out pieces of cardboard to complete the body of the unicorn.

Before I attached the head to the body, I took the wings and folded the cutouts in the wings.

Finally, I got to assembling the final product! I attached the head to the body, attached the tail and the mane and voila - my unicorn was finally finished and ready to fly!

Well... not quite yet. I had to figure out a way to make the wings flap properly - that is, make it return to its original position after flapping it and not just stay in that position. To do this, I took a rubber band and attached it to the inner flap of the wings and the rear end of my unicorn.

This works as when I press the wings backwards, the inner flaps connected with the rubber band move forward, stretching the rubber band further and causing it to gain elastic potential energy. When I let go of the wings, the elastic potential energy is converted to the kinetic energy of the rubber band and the wings, moving the inner flaps backwards and the wings forward (the slot acts as a pivot.) Hence the wings are able to return back to their original position :D

Here is a quick video demonstration: