Poet’s Blox ‘live’

Commissioned by Lorenzen Engineering Inc.

For more information on the live camera, please visit Alex McKay‘s website.

Kaitlyn sands down the walls in the gallery.

Today was the moving day for all the teams in the Green Corridor class. Each team was asked to have all their projects completed and ready for set up.

 The Gallery was recently occupied by another exhibit and after taking all the art work down; the media team was required to make some minor touch ups along the walls. We added another white coat of pain to the walls that had large holes and other marks on them.

A little touch up here and there.

The Media Team arranged so that each group would have a set up time to bring all their materials, prototypes and other details into the gallery. As we began setting up, there were a number of changes made to the site map and overall layout.

Earthship group begins setting up their section.

The Guerilla team drops off their furniture.

On Thursday, June 16th 2011 students, friends and family will come together for the Environmental Intervention Exhibition. The event will run from 7pm- 10pm. Refreshments will be provided.

Check out our event on Facebook and let us know if you will be attending.

If you are unable to attend, follow us at @greencorridor  for live updates/tweets.

See you Thursday!

…If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it. It seems like only yesterday the 8 of us were assembled as a group but now we are a team. Each of us represents one tentacle of an octopus and when we wrap ourselves around a problem it will surely be solved. The semester coming to a close is one reason for this nostalgia but the other reason is the legacy report. We have several projects that will need to be carried forward and completed, or improved upon in later semesters. We spent considerable time today going through old meeting notes so that we can put together a legacy report that will allow our projects to reach fruition.

The Aftermath of our First Brainstorming Session

We also spent considerable time completing one of our major construction projects; the new arm for the Poet’s Blox. The installation of the new arm required careful consideration and brute strength.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Mazen

The install took a lot of hard work and we even had to go into overtime but we were able to get it fully installed. The arm and wires are in place and now the task of positioning the mirror is all that remains. This tedious task should be accomplished tomorrow.

All smiles as the installation seems to be complete

20 minutes later…still holding

We only have a few loose ends to tie up before the final exhibition and we are getting excited to showcase our work to the University and the City.

On Tuesday, June 14th, the Greening Group got a donation of 10 flats of flowers from St. Thomas of Villanova secondary school. We planted the flowers in all of the flower beds and the front entrance of the EcoHouse. There were enough flowers left over to use in our display in the LeBel Gallery for Thursday’s final presentations. We put more mulch into one of the gardens and gave all the plants a drink of water. We had put bird seed into the feeders last week and noticed that the feeders were empty and surrounded by many hungry birds. We will be putting more seed into the feeders on Wednesday. Since we planted the flowers and shrubs, the amount of birds on the EcoHouse lot has risen by 100%. That is, from no birds ever visiting the lot to being surrounded by birds all afternoon = 100% increase!

We are working on the final details of our Legacy Report, and on the sign for the front of the EcoHouse.  This sign will describe the concept of the garden to visitors; it will also list the names of all the businesses and organizations that generously donated to our project. We brought over several planters to the LeBel for our presentation. These planters are filled with the materials that we have been working with since the beginning of the project, and with some of the many flowers that were donated to our group. We hope that the people who donated to our garden will come to the presentations and see how we have used their donations to us.

The team started the day off by addressing some of the pending safety hazards concerning our Earthship prototype located on the EcoHouse lot. After we were reassured that the structure was secure and all possible hazards were safetied and highlight, we moved our focus on the gallery exhibit and legacy report.

Filling tires with recyclables and earth.

The group discussed the issues of what importance the gallery had on showcasing the work completed during this short semester as well as highlighting process and function.

Discussing a suitable arrangement of materials

We transported the remaining materials from the Ecohouse lot to the Lebel gallery in hope of some sudden inspiration. Our team reconstructed a smaller scale prototype much like the one on the lot; the tire stacked in an interlocking manner, the tools necessary were presented as well as the tires being set up to appear as though they were filled with pounded earth.

Insulation prototype

The team came up with an easy solution to recreating the process by filling the immediate tires with cardboard, recyclables and covering the top with a thin layer of dirt, making they easy to manage, but also displaying function and engaging interest from the spectators we expect to encounter at the Exhibition!

Design elements of Earthship showcased

VIDEO FROM PORTION OF GALLERY INSTALLATION

Our adventure that we call class began when we rented a Uhaul truck to load our furniture all in one  place. We would become a travelling chair bombing group that goes around Windsor anonymously filming citizens in order to get sincere reactions.

This class we:  1) Completed filming footage for our “fast track” videos by Chair bombing bus stations, 2) Discussed/Worked on Legacy Report 3) Set up gallery for Thursday’s exhibition.

LOCATION 1) Wyandotte and Oulette bus station. -Received lots of attention from the  public along with questioning gazes.

LOCATION 2) Oulette bus stations. Anonymously filmed public getting on buses and curiously eyeing chairs. We started to see a pattern going on where one of us had to sit on one of the chairs to motivate or start a “chain reaction.”

LOCATION 3) Windsor Bus Terminal. At this location, we received much attention from the public going to the tiger’s game. Here, we grabbed the attention of two bus drivers that were very intrigued by the idea and suggested that we stay in contact with them. They told us that the city of Windsor would be thrilled to see our idea about the portable bus station because the city was looking into building a new train station. Our innovative prototypes would be welcome for consideration.

Our successful day came to an end. After grabbing the attention from the bus drivers, we saw that our project could become a greater reality  in talking to City Hall about our prototypes.

…and the rest of the Tech Team were busily working to get all projects completed before the rapidly appraoching semester finale. The projects we need to finish are:

1) Install the Poet’s Blox mirror arm

2) Paint the Poet’s Blox Mirror arm

3) Prepare Mobile Garden protoypes for the exhibition

4) Integrate renewable energy with the model train

Last week we performed major surgery on the Poet’s Blox and we successfully removed the wooden mirror arm. Today we began the process of installing the new metallic arm.

We needed to weld the main support bracket to the Poet’s Blox before installation of the arm. The precision welding skills required were outside of our teams capabilities so we called up a rookie from our farm team. Here he is in action, note the perfect form:

After some intense welding and less than intense painting the bracket was ready to receive the new arm.

From brain surgery to bracket welding…Precision is all that matters

The metallic arm is made of steel and needed to be painted prior to installation. Despite the face that  none of our team members had painted since kindergarten, we were still able to do a good job. Once the paint is dry we will be able to do the final install on the Poet’s Blox. Then we will need to re-install the mirrors for the live camera feed.

Show me paint the Blox, Danielson

The final exhibition is less than a week away and things are really getting exciting around the Green Corridor. We made final preparations on some of the work we plan to exhibit. Here we are putting the finishing touches on the second prototype of the Mobile Garden.

We also continued work on the full scale prototype of the Mobile Garden. We have to do some major testing on the full scale motors to ensure that such a large prototype can operate safely. With some hard work we should be able to have this third prototype ready for the final exhibition.

We did experience one major setback today. During testing of the HO scale train controller we accidentally short circuited the system. This will make integrating the train with a renewable power source difficult, but not impossible.

A picture is worth a thousand words but Moez’s expression speaks volumes

We need to design and build some new circuitry over the weekend to ensure that the train is ready to go for the exhibition. If Lance Armstrong can come back from a cancerous death sentence and win 7 Tour de France’s, we can certainly overcome a little fried circuitry.

The group spent the day putting the finishing touches on the ongoing projects such as the recycled “walls” and the tire wall at the EcoHouse. Our goal was the leave the project at a position that could be easily continued for the next team. To do this, we stacked our available remaining tires and secured them with galvanized steel poles and chicken wire. With the intention of making the site more aesthetically pleasing as well as to recycle as much of the materials as possible, we created an impromptu garden using the remaining dirt, plants, and wild flowers. The team is now anticipating the gallery exhibit. The importance being the idea of what an Earthship does and the progressive way of thinking it can inspire. We hope that we can achieve this goal at the Ecohouse as well as at Lebel to stimulate conversation in our post industrial city.

Jon and Laura consider the best way to secure the wall to prevent injury and make it accessible for the next team.

Watch the team’s videos below by following the link to our YouTube Channel.

The team decided it to be significant to make step by step video and photo documentation of how to make tire and recycled walls: Mistakes included!

Recycled wall prototype!

Process has taught us: Use a minimal amount of water when mixing mortar, especially for the glass bottle as they have some weight. Or else you might have to spend some time chiseling away the excess!

Our impromptu garden!

With the help from the Greening team we hope to make our public sculpture prototype a little more pleasing to the eye!

TO BE CONTINUED…

We’re winding down as we reach the end of our rather short semester, with the garden being as finished as we can get it, we only hope that a future team will take over and improve on the areas we had no time to improve ourselves.

We put down some coloured mulch in our gardens today, as well as placing a cap over a pipe hole in the ground.

Red mulch

Looking good

Putting on the cap

As relaxed as our garden effort has become, the excess energy now goes into the sign for the Ecohouse. In retrospect, we should have gotten on this sooner, but it went to the backburner, as getting the garden fixed was more of a priority. After all, what good is a sign for a garden that doesn’t exist?

A preliminary design has been drawn up for the sign and we hope to have it solidified before next class.

Yay, team!

Today our focus geared towards capturing tons of raw still images and video footage as well as chair bombing around the city. We have finally come towards wrapping-up our projects…

Our group split up into several subgroups to successfully move forward. The paper mache couch was transported and placed at the down-town Windsor bus terminal and received a lot of attention from bus drivers to bus riders! Many of the people we interacted with were on board for recycled public infrastructure. Constructive criticisms were made towards the paper mache couch; most of which included statements about more weather-durable materials.

Our “Tall Bench” is fully finished and has been locked and chained to a concrete bench outside the Leddy Library quarters of the University of Windsor. It’s been placed by a densely used bus stop on University St- we encourage everyone to GO CHECK IT OUT!

The tire swing has also made its debut near the southern area of the tourist information building on Huron St. The tire swing was put together using recycled tires, nuts, bolts and chain. It’s securely swinging on a tree and will be kept up indefinitely.

The mobile bus station model has also joined our other projects in completion. It features recycled furniture made out of flyers and a roof-top solar panel that powers a working light bulb. The roof-top is adorned with grass and greenery to keep the area looking and feeling fresh.

The two lounge chairs made out of recycled shopping carts are in progress and will be completed tomorrow!