PART 1
The elevators operate in the 6 East 16th Street building are usually causes delay to classes. The long line in the morning normally requires more than ten minutes wait time for students or faculties to get to their floor. The last time I waited for the elevator, I saw a poster next to it asking people to post pictures on instagram #waitingfortheelevator.
The original purpose of elevator is that the object itself overall brings convenience to life. After decades that people in the city have heavily rely on the functionality of elevator, it gets more difficult for the object itself to reach people’s expectation. People no longer take stairs as an option. The only error that the elevators might have is the operating system that is not efficient enough to satisfy the speed that people nowadays requires. The project research supposes to include the statistic of the number of people using the elevator and the calculation of the operating speed of the machinery, to find out whether if it can accommodate the daily usage of the object. The way to improve the functionality is to improve a better engineering system for the elevator.
(Picture attached below) from instagram #waitingfortheelevator
PART 2
Method, Engineering Process, Design for the Operation System, Mechanics
The process of inventing an elevator needs to start with the design sketches or any form of diagrams to demonstrates to people how the method is going to work. After the designers and engineers plan out the inventing process, they need to hire mechanics to build the vehicle. For engineering process, they need to research and variety types of calculations, in consideration of the passengers, the momentum, safety issues and such. After the large ideas are finalized for the engineering part, the designers come up with vehicle that can fits into the architecture of the building, especially for some taller buildings, and all other elements that involve in this brand new concept of movements in vertical direction. The first model of elevator is not able to take over the stairs, because the time it takes to elevate is longer than the time it takes to climb stairs. In addition, the machine was manual back in the time, there was somebody in the vehicle to operate the machine and open the gate at each floor. The technology keeps on improve and finally it gets to a generation where no one takes the stairs anymore. They design & engineer the new auto system for the vehicle after the skyscrapers were built in order to upgrade the speed. Since the city changed and the population increases, the whole system has to change into a way that satisfied people’s need.
The second project that I did for my Space/ Materiality class last semester, we were assigned to do a public installation in the University Center. My other three classmates and I work as a team together to plan out the idea for the installation. The only requirement for the assignment is to use wire as the main material for the project. We decided to focus on the relation between the exterior and the interior of the building. Due to the different view points to the installation in the building and from the outside of the building, audiences get different images while looking at it from different angle. I got the inspiration from the windows that slanted to different angles. We first started thinking about using the copper wire to make a coil, and use the electric field of the coil to make an electric train using battery. The movement caused by the electric train in the coil gains attention from both point of views, but only the people in the exterior get the complete image of the installation. Our group tried to build the electric train but the result doesn’t turn out as efficient as how we expected. After Plan A failed, we spend tremendous amount of time planning out new ideas. We tried other different materials to combine with wire. It took us about five large adjustments before we get set on the last idea of using reflective materials combine with wire to form a cohesive structure to the architecture structure. We did research of the architecture and gather all kinds of information for the public installation before we get to set on our very last idea.
