Week 8 Update

Week 8 Update

This week, continued efforts to print the part were made. Issues arose with scaling the size down, as the details were lost in size reduction. No details appeared with the 3D-printed part, and the structurally-sound design was compromised with curling and being too thin.

With the original size of the hexagon being ½ in thick, scaling it down was too much for the printer. Pieces were falling off and detail was lost, in addition to the structural integrity of the piece. No more efforts will be made to 3D print the part, but Ilana and Bill are working in Fusion to develop a visual representation of the hexagon part, in addition to an artistic render of a physical model of the Honeywalk piece. This will not be to scale but will show in detail where the parts would have gone in a 3D-printed piece.

Julia continues to work on the Myers walkway proposal so that a visual of the pathway is created.

Figure 1: The centerpiece of the Myers Walkway. 

The figure above shows the proposed centerpiece of the Myers Walkway. A tree native to Pennsylvania will go in the center, and all the pathways will connect to this main piece. The dimension shown is to be revised and fixed in the coming week. It was also decided this week that the group would also landscape the rest of the path with native plants and flowers. Spencer spent the day working on the blog updates and finding native plants for the Myers greenspace garden/walkway proposal. These will be made into an annotated list and placed in the CAD drawing so a visual of the garden is created.

It’s important to find plants native to Pennsylvania because these will not die in the summer with hot weather and will return in the spring after the frost in the winter comes. It’s also imperative to find native plants because invasive species are an important factor in the destruction of ecosystems. An accompanying article can be found in Background Information on invasive species.