Week 4: The Table

Ok that's pretty cool.

But do you want to know something that isn't cool. Tables.

After designing, redesigning, buying, redesigning, re-buying, redesigning, etc., the 80/20 parts for my table finally arrived. And for a heap of metal frames, nuts, and bolts, it was quite an enriching experience.

Like any other task so far in my internship, constructing the table was deceptively simple. Just had to attach the T-slotted frames to a series of rectangular nuts hanging from brackets and gussets. But the nuts didn't listen to me. I tried to arrange them all into a nice line, and nuts being nuts, they went nuts. What began as a simple building task ended as an epic (and profanity-filled) wrestling match as I attempted to re-align all the nuts while shoving them into the slots.

The result: a rather unimposing aluminum structure which did exactly what you'd expect a table to do. It held up the parts of the experiment, as planned. Wait, not quite as planned.

You see, the experiment changed last minute (without my knowledge) after I had built the table. The moving parts got moved from their originally planned positions. Now unable to hold the experiment for which it was originally designed, my table now had two options. The first (not cost-effective) was to be completely dismantled and thrown into the "spare parts" cabinet. The second (more reasonable) was to be frankensteined into a monstrosity of a table as we attempted to repurpose it.

At the end of it all, it wasn't even my table anymore. My table was gone.