At first I struggled with this project: to design and build a structure forming a parabolic curve out of wooden strips, without using any glue. I was not highly experienced in the woodshop and hadn’t done math in a long time. But when I saw examples of parabolic designs during class I saw that there were many interesting directions to go in.

I wanted to plot my design on diamond-shaped axes and two normal axes forming a 90° angle to give the design a tail-shape. But once I got into manufacturing it, i decided it would be better to cut off the tail and just have the diamond axes to work off of. It formed a stretched spiral shape, and to make it more interesting I decided to sequentially raise the wood, hoisting them up with dowels. I used 1/4”-thick balsa wood and 3/16th-width dowels which I bought at Blick. I cut the balsa wood into 1/4 * 8” inch strips and began to lay them over my drawing to measure and mark exactly where I would need to drill holes through the strips in the woodshop. Then I cut the dowels based on the how much empty space there was in each drilled area of the construction. Once I put everything together, I decided that I wanted it to look more slick and rounded to evoke the movement of a curve, so I drew on the strips where I wanted to cut them diagonally at each tip with the bansaw. I spent about 2 days working in the woodshop and unmeasured time at home and in class to complete this project, and I bought around 3$ of material.

Looking at the project back, it looks like a modern monument, an artistic staircase, or even a coiled snake or dragon. I can see flaws in my execution of this project, such as faint traces of pencil stain, and two slightly unstable dowels, but overall I’m proud of the things I learned and the skills I developed through this. Most importantly, of branching out of my comfort zone.