Twelve talented hands and 4 days to make something. But what?

February 4, 2009 11:44 AM

Six reasonably talented and experienced makers-of-things, lots of tools, a few hundred dollars in supplies, lots of space, and four days. What can we build?

It's a bit of a family reunion at the farm, and we're all the kind of people who grew up making and building stuff. There will likely be more than six people once all the spouses and children are counted, but we're all adults, and we all know how to use tools. (We all subscribe to Make magazine, for example.) To give a rough range of skills we have everything from a fine woodworker to a prop-maker for a major theater. One is a professional artist, another makes trebuchets for fun.

We've thought about doing a Junkyard War's style challenge (Split into teams, and both try to build the same thing.) but we haven't really come up with anything that is both fun and challenging, but that also isn't going to be huge amounts of work and stress.

Limitations:
- Two of the six people have movement disabilities, but will still need to participate somehow, even if only in the design.
- It should be a part-time project. We threw out the idea of a deluxe tree house because it would probably take too much time.
- Ideally it would last outside for a few seasons, as a bit of a memorial to the long family weekend. If it can be useful, all the better.

Some ideas so far: Kinetic sculptures. Some kind of tensegrity structure. Giant trebuchet (except we've all built small ones before.) A wind-powered.... ?

What else?

posted by Ookseer to grab bag (18 comments total)

A yurt!
posted by zamboni at 11:51 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]

Ultralight? Your woodworker could make a custom propeller.

Barbecue pit? Outdoor, wood-fired oven?
posted by backseatpilot at 12:02 PM on February 4

I've always wanted to build a mini Ewok* type village in a wooded area. Miniature tree houses, bridges between them, little staircases spiraling up trees to lookout towers, that sort of thing.

You could build it along a trail for future travelers to enjoy, or off the beaten path for someone to accidentally discover one day and think they've stumbled upon Lilliput.

*not actually Ewoks, but the sort of "up in the trees" type of village they lived in.
posted by bondcliff at 12:08 PM on February 4 [5 favorites]

What kind of budget/starting materials do you guys have access to? That will drive at least some of the decision-making (or at least the scale).

A giant trebuchet actually has a lot of different challenges than a smaller scale one does. You end up running into interesting material choices because you can't just overbuild the bejeezus out of it, or make it all out of Aluminum or Steel plate.

-Maybe make something badass for the people with movement disabilities?
-Maybe do something in the house (some form of automation if you have an electronics person or someone willing to learn, a small renovation)
-Something sweet for the kids to play with/on?
-All of the setup or overhead for creating some product (presumably to sell)?
-With that number of people, right equipment, and the right landscape, you can build a crude log cabin in a weekend
-You say at the farm... does the farm need anything? Does it need anything improved? Re-fit, re-roof, modernize, and paint the barn.

Lots of stuff you guys could do!
posted by milqman at 12:08 PM on February 4

definitely a yurt. it can be your hospitality/meditation structure. very healing.
posted by watercarrier at 12:13 PM on February 4

One of these?
posted by Krrrlson at 12:24 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

A propane accumulator effect? A wood fired hot tub?

Obviously, be careful with anything involving compressed gasses and fire.
posted by pombe at 12:39 PM on February 4

Quick answers:

We want to build somethign fun/creative/interesting. The farm is well maintained and doesn't need much work, and has recently been handicap-accessible-ized. I'm sure someone will put a new coat of paint on something and trim back a tree, but we want a project that we all build from scratch as a memorial to this rare gathering of our family outside of a wedding or funeral.

Supplies: We have... uh... a bunch of random stuff you'd find on a hundred year old farm, plus a budget of maybe $800 for the local home center. Natural resources would be what we can pull out of a large wooded area and way too many melon-sized rocks.

A yurt or a mystery object like Krrison posted really gets me thinking.
posted by Ookseer at 12:57 PM on February 4

A small geodesic dome clubhouse?
posted by lobstah at 12:59 PM on February 4

You should make a raku kiln, get some clay and have everyone make pots to fire and glaze, and have an awesome raku party!
posted by oulipian at 1:31 PM on February 4

If it were my family, we would make a big brick pizza/bread oven, along with a gazebo or some other sort of outdoor shelter/picnic area, and then finish off the weekend by baking mass amounts of bread and pizza's to take home. This also helps to involve people who may not be interested in building things, but are into cooking and baking.
posted by markblasco at 1:54 PM on February 4 [3 favorites]

Ohh -- definitely make a yurt. That would be so cool. Next year the kids could play in it, or it'd be like an extra bedroom for the annual family reunion.
posted by cgg at 1:54 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]

If you guys are experienced with trebuchets, how about another ancient machine? Here are some from the History Channel, but I think you guys could probably do a nice moving sculpture/fountain a la Heron of Alexandria. I particularly liked his one that had singing, moving birds featured in Ancient Discoveries - Robots recently on the History Channel.
posted by CoralAmber at 2:27 PM on February 4

Well, there's no such thing as too many bathrooms on the property.

How about the world's greatest outhouse (or two)?
posted by imjustsaying at 2:59 PM on February 4

Cob hot tub!
posted by ottereroticist at 3:59 PM on February 4

Check out "The Bread Builders" and "Build Your Own Earth Oven".

You could set up an outdoor oven (as has been suggested) and build a bit of a structure over it to protect it from the elements. It wouldn't have the competitive element, but other than that....
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:22 PM on February 4

You could build a stitch-and-glue boat, assuming there's water nearby to test it, and the weather's warm enough (for the expoxy resin to cure).
posted by primer_dimer at 2:52 AM on February 5

A couple yards of concrete and "too many" melon-sized rocks could turn into a lot of things in the right hands.

"Too many" melon-sized rocks also sounds like ammo (for a trebuchet).

Of course, you could also combine the ideas and make a trebuchet that throws melon-sized rocks at a wall/target made of concrete and melon-sized rocks. I think the sweetness here just got a little more intense!
posted by milqman at 4:39 PM on February 5