Mongolian Nomads

The pictures you showed were very eye opening. I was kind of confused though. These people that are building their new houses (yurts) in the grass fields.. where were they before this? It was really interesting to see how exactly they were built, though, and it was cool that all the other families that were in the area came over to help. I bet this was an awesome experience for you and I am kind of jealous. Its unimaginable for me to process how they live their lives like that, but it is really interesting to think about.

Rapid Prototyping

Learning about the rapid prototyping techniques was very interesting, especially seeing the videos of how each is done and used.

The four that we saw include:

Stereolithography

Selective Laser Sintering

Deposition Printing / FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling)

Laminated Object Manufacturing


It was cool to learn that a few of these processes can be found in the engineering department, and I will definitely need to find time to go venture over there and see these with my own eyes and maybe get a chance to use them to help my development process here at KU.

Berry Plastics

Berry plastics is a manufacturing plant located in Lawrence that specifies themselves in plastic products for things like containers to tubing to packaging. They use materials like high-density polyethylene and polypropylene. They use mold processes like injection and thermoform. They also make trash bags and different styles of tapes.

Target Product: Rugs

The product that I documented and researched was home rugs.

There were multiple brands at Target:

nThreshold

nTarget’s “Home” Brand

nMohawk Home

nNate Berkus

nRE: Room Essentials

Each brand used mainly the same materials, that included...

Cotton, Jute, Nylon, Wool, "Other Fiber", Rayon, Olefin, and Polyester

PROCESSES

nGather raw materials

nClean the fibers

nSpun into threads with spindle

nMultiple threads spun together to form yarn

nDye the materials

nOnce spun and dyed, the weaving process begins

Manufactured Landscapes

To start off, the beginning scene with the camera that pans across the side of the massive factory was eye-opening. The film is a basic aesthetic study of industrial landscapes. The documenters shed light on the tedious and repetitive individual processes that make up giant manufacturing processes, like disassembling electronics and breaking down cities that will soon be covered in water. The conditions of the places where electronic waste recycling was taking place were terrible. Smog and pollution filled the air, with disgusting work areas for what they are doing. I am sure that they weren't protecting the workers from materials that contain cancer causing toxins either. The villages they were breaking down that would soon be covered in water literally looked like bomb sites.