For the final project, we started off by creating small models by deconstructing a stuffed animal and reconstructing it with plastic bags. Unfortunately, my stuffed animal had a bit of a complication design so I wasn’t able to fully retain its shape in the model I made.
Then we moved on to working in groups to create a giant inflatable object. My group consisted of me, Iverson, Anya and Mahek. Originally, we were going to do a peacock, but because it would be too complicated, we decided to do a peacock colored jellyfish instead, which also fit the theme of plastic waste better. We took inspiration from an endangered species of jellyfish and made a small model at first.
After that, we worked on the design more and decided on making three layers for the head: one transparent, one light blue and dark blue and one orange and light blue. Using a heated flatiron to fuse the plastics together, we cut out individual triangles and fused them together to create a circular shape. Then, we fused the first two layers together and placed a few plastic bottles in this layer, to represent the issue of plastic waste in the ocean.
We made the third layer and a base to attach the tentacles to and fused those together as well. For the tentacles, we used the leftover plastic from the head and plastic umbrella bags to create both inflatable tentacles and braids, for a more appealing look. As our design was quite complicated, we encountered a lot of challenges and technical difficulties through making this, such as how to get the air flowing through the entire jellyfish and how to fuse the layers together so that they would all inflate into the dome shape we wanted. Throughout the process of making it, we had to make little changes to our design to make sure it would work and although we had some worries, in the end we managed to overcome these challenges and create a jellyfish that was more or less how we had envisioned it to be.
The main thing I would change about this project if I were to do this again, would be putting more thought into the installation of it, because we had trouble coming up with a way and place to hang it. We ended up having to hang it lower than we wanted, so the tentacles were dragging on the floor instead of floating. It also would have been better if the air was flowing from the bottom as opposed to the top, so that it could be hung up higher without someone having to be there blowing air through it.
