Home for Now

For this project, our group of 3 were tasked to do the make it heal challenge, where we are to create an environment where if a natural disaster is to happen there is a place where you can feel safe and taken care of. We worked as a group of three for this project.

In 1925 there was a big tornado that destroyed many, and killed many, structures in Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana. This twister was infamously called the ‘Tri-State Tornado’. Our group wanted to focus on this area because we believe this is an applicable idea to the real world. We had to sketch out the idea first, we decided to work on a simple bunker and made it as if it were blueprints that you could see up above. We made an outline that looked like a house with multiple rooms for different things, but keeping a walkway in the middle. We wanted two restrooms, two bedrooms, a pet room, and a small engine room. We chose to 3D model this tornado bunker, a secure bunker with availability for a lot of people. Our setting for this project is in a rural area in southern Missouri, so we chose a ranch which a lot of people had at the time

This challenge had us use the free 3D modeling software, TinkerCAD. We had to do 3D model using TinkerCAD, and we needed to hand make this setting and building. We would assemble the parts to complete our design we had already cooked up in TinkerCAD

Our only materials were:

· TinkerCAD

· Cardboard

· Cardboard cutter

· Hot Glue Gun

· A ruler.

· Modeling clay

More for the setting

1. . Tissue paper
2. Blue
3. Light blue
4. Maden green
5. Acrylic paint
6. Green
7. Brown
8. . Paintbrush
9. Little wooden toothpicks.
10. Pipe cleaners

Safety Considerations:

Don't touch the hot glue while its coming out of the glue gun

Wear safety glasses when cutting cardboard, also be mindful on where your hands are.

Don't eat paint.

Building

We headed to TINKERCAD to start to 3D model. Our first step was to make shape of all the rooms; We used 2 squares and combined them with the walls. We then use 2 other boxes to cut the inside making it hollow so that we can add more rooms inside. Next, we started on the storage room, we used a square to create the room size then we added another square to hollow out the previous square. Later we repeated that process when making the other rooms such as the restroom, sleeping rooms, and the pet room.

The Little Details :)

When we finished doing all the rooms, it was time to make the rooms like the rooms’ purpose. Starting off with the storage room, we used small squares to mimic the look of boxes to make them look like boxes of food. For the feeding area, there is a counter where the food is served at. (to add another detail we decided to add a box!)

For the sleeping rooms, we of course added bunk beds, we added 4 sets of bunk beds to each room, each room can have 8 people to sleep

The Pet Room

Next was the pet room, what we did was we used a sphere as the bottom, and we flattened it out then added a donut shape on top to make the pet bed realistic because most pet beds have that shape. In the same room we added fake grass so that the animals can do their business. And that was it for the pet room

The Restroom

Last for the restrooms we made toilets out of a square then we drew the toilet seat and added it all together. We then made a sink out of a square and added a spere to make it hollow then drew the sink handles and the faucet. Last for the people that have toddlers we made a baby changer, it's connected to the wall, and you can lay your baby on top of it and change them.

Last we added the ladder where you come in and out.

Setting

Our goal for this side of the project is to make a model, hand-made, and make it look as realistic as possible. We created a rural setting in 1925 in Missouri with a river running through, and a few trees that were made of clay, and the rest were made of paint and tissue paper. It is simply a model, but it should show as much of the surroundings to people to understand the setting we are in.

We spent a couple weeks on this, which was because we were focusing on the building, but it was a simple dark mocha green field that was the same size as the TinkerCAD grid, a couple of cylinders made trees and spheres and a river that run through.

The field

To make the field we got a cube, or box, from the presets and spread it the same size as grid in TinkerCAD, and changed the color to a mocha green, and flattened it (changed the height) to be 0.125 inches.

The River

As before we changed the height to be 0.125 inches, but we decided, in order to see it out of the grass, we changed it to be about 0.130 inches. We decided to make it 2 and 2 ¼ inches and we made it an aqua blue.

The tree trunks.

We used a simple cylinder, about a half inch wide and long, and stuck it on the green and used tiny spheres to make up the bush of the tree. The trunk was a lighter dark brown and the spheres were a dark forest green. We shaped the spheres around the area of the tree and worked our way up to make a subtle cone shape.

Our steps in making the bunker

We first made the outline and the bunker building itself, and one was in charge of the props. The focus of this part of the model was to show how this bunker will take care of you when a tornado comes through the home on the ground.

The base home

First the base was about a foot long and wide, and the walls that we outlined with were 4 inches long. We cut them out of another big piece of cardboard to the measurements of whatever side we were on. We outlined the rooms from tinkerCAD model to the box.

Making the pet beds

First, we got the modeling clay, and I took four small pieces, 2 noticeably smaller than the others, and rolled each of them into spheres. We used my thumb to make as indent of them and evened it out as much as possible. They were pet beds, two for adult pets, two for the little ones.

Toilets

To make the bathroom props, and there were two bathrooms, we made another sphere and made cone by rolling our hands up to one direction and cut off the pointy bit, made out a little circle and placed it on the button. We used my thumb to make an indent inside it to make a bowl. We then made another sphere and flattened it to make a circle and used that as a lid. We repeated the process only this time making it a tad bit smaller for the children to use.

We then painted the seat and lid brown.

Sinks

We used the same logic as the toilet; We made a bowl. But we didn’t leave it there, so we made it a rectangular shape. We then got a piece of clay, rolled it up the make a little cylinder and stuck it on the middle top of the sink and curved it to look like a faucet. We got two clay bits that were less than the width of my pinky finger and rolled ‘em up to make buttons which stuck on the sides of the faucet. We repeated the process, again making it smaller for the children.

Then we painted each blue on the top, inside the sink and the counter.

Desks and Stools

With cardboard, we decided that we would make a 3-inch desk and a 1-inch stool. With the toothpicks, we cut them in half or in a quarter and added cardboard on top. That was the simple stool

For the desk it was simply 5 pieces of cardboard, and we made a little rectangular fence that looked like a box-ish parathesis and added a top to the side of the parathesis. And inside the new box we added a small cardboard rectangle more towards the top middle (width wise) for storage.

Painting

We painted the ground sky blue and the walls yellow and red.

Setting

We created a rural setting in 1925 in Missouri with a river running through, and a few trees that were made of clay, and the rest were made of paint and tissue paper. It is simply a model, but it should show as much of the surroundings to people to understand the setting we are in.

Some of the group members were off building the home and home props, so this project took around 2 weeks.

Some precautions I would take is to simply not poke your eye with the tooth picks you will see.

Making the Base

We got a cardboard piece that was about a foot long and a little bit less wide. We first painted the base with a forest green and then on top in the middle a normal blue from the acrylic paints that were lying around.

Making the trees

Then we got a bunch of quick hardening clay and made a big cylinder. We cut into pieces and made little branches on top, hooping upwards. We placed the tooth pick in the center of the trunk as we made small spheres that we placed together on top of the now trunk (cylinder) and the toothpick. We repeated this process 4 other times.

Making the water and grass

To add more texture, we decided to use tissue paper for the water and grass from the base. For the water, we had the idea of crumpling tissue paper so it would look like waves and different shades of blue to look like reflections on the sun. We then hot glued them to the flat river base. We also had the brilliant idea of ripping out some green tissue paper and reducing it to skinny shorter pieces we would twist and coil It took a while, but we got it to work.

We painted the trees brown on the trunk and easy green for the sphere leaves.

Grass

We ripped up some green tissue paper and many at that, and we winkled those pieces together, not into a ball, but a little string, and we sprinkled some on top of the green paint like cheese on a bean burrito.

Flowers

We used pipe cleaners, cyan, and purple. We made loops and collected them in the middle and used the end to tie everything around.

One thing we could've done better was to scale things better so that the rooms wouldn't be as small or narrow as they were. We also feel as if we should've just 3D printed the building so we could focus on the little designs and the setting.

But this

Our model is based on something that can survive and be used after a tornado. It is an underground bunker that has supplies of food and water as also to having food for your pets as well. People can borrow these ideas and designs to make it their temporary home under their home on the surface.