chairs, take three

The Hawks have continued their quest for the best-built chair! They've learned some new things from Sean about square joints, created second iterations of their first designs, and studied chair designs.Earlier last week, Mackenzie set out the two iterations of chairs that the Hawks had built. She writes, "Presented in this way, their growth as builders and designers was obvious, though not always linear (some things were improved in the second chair while others may have been lost).  Nonetheless, their effort and mastery can be seen in the flush joints, square corners and greater stability of these new chairs. Not to say that there is not room for growth, but there is something about seeing how far you’ve come to compel you to take a step further. In a school with out letter grades these moments where learning is made visible are paramount."With Sean, they learned about using dowels and glue to create more polished furniture joints. He gave them three basic rules to follow: making the joints true (flushed and aligned), square (at a ninety degree angle) and precise (to a quarter inch, based on their design). They drew new designs for chairs to scale with architectural rulers and labeled the doweling points to have a clearer guide for construction. Mackenzie reported that they worked extra long and hard to build new skills of precision to make everything just right.They visited the parklet outside of Arizmendi Bakery in the Inner Sunset to talk about aesthetics and ergonomics with the architect who designed the benches - Quinn's dad Jack! He discussed the process he went through and the constraints of space. The Hawks measured the chairs and the parklet space to check the accuracy of the blueprints, leading to a spontaneous lesson in converting inches to feet.After presenting budget proposals to Ellen and Gever on Tuesday, the Hawks visited MacBeath Hardwood, a lumber supply store that stocks beautiful wood and woodworking tools, to pick out and buy lengths of poplar for their new chairs.They also visited Sean's former workplace, where they talked to Forest of Varian Design, a furniture making company, Greg, a cabinet maker, and Toph, a retired rocket scientist turned luthier (which is a stringed-instrument-maker).Don't be afraid to make mistakes, Forest told them. That's how you learn!