learndesign
Post ·
Panel saw safety
Twelve rules for the Safety Speed vertical panel saw, with diagrams of where hands never go, how a crosscut runs top-down, and why a rip cut only feeds one way. Read, initial, sign, then cut.
Tag
Woodworking
Lumber and plywood builds: measuring, cutting, fasteners, and shop safety.
Post ·
Mitre saw safety
Twelve rules for the sliding mitre saw, with diagrams of the two that cause most accidents, hands inside 150 mm of the blade and sliding the head toward yourself. Read, initial, sign, then cut.
Post ·
Wood framing standards
How a stick-framed wall is put together in Ontario, and how doors and windows are framed into it. Stud spacing, plates, king and jack studs, headers, cripples and rough openings, with the numbers you need to lay one out.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Six by Six
A six-foot cube of space somewhere people already pass, a small pile of lumber, and one question to answer with it. What goes there is yours to work out, and you have to show it was worth building.
Post ·
Fasteners, explained
How to read a screw or bolt by its head, drive, thread, length and material, so you can name it, find a match, and take a product apart without stripping anything.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Build a skateboard deck
Press a seven-ply maple deck with a Roarockit kit and a Thin Air Press vacuum bag, then shape it, drill it, finish it and ride it. Your outline, your concave, your graphic. A real product with real loads on it.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
A set piece for the stage
Design and build one full-size piece of scenery that a production can actually use. A door unit, a window flat, a platform, a rolling wagon, a staircase. It has to look right from the seats, hold the people who use it, move on and off in the dark, and come apart to fit through a door.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Pumpkin launcher
Design a machine that throws a payload as far and as repeatably as you can. Prove the mechanism at desk scale with a ping-pong ball, then build it full size from 2×4s and launch a pie pumpkin across the field.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
A museum-style exhibit
Design and build a physical display, model or hands-on simulation that teaches one idea to a stranger in about a minute, with no one there to explain it. A working mechanism, a cutaway, a scale model, or an interactive that shows why something happens.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
A DIY speaker
Design and build a small speaker from a driver, an amplifier board and a box you designed for that driver. The box is the product. Its volume, its port and its stiffness decide how it sounds as much as the driver does.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Structures for animals
Design and build a structure for an animal that will actually use it. A solitary bee hotel, a bird or bat box, a cat tower, a catio, a dog house. The client cannot read your drawings, so the research has to be right.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Outdoor seating from 2×4s
Design and build outdoor benches, seats and small structures from construction lumber for an outdoor learning space. Ergonomics, exterior fasteners and finishes, and a build that survives a Canadian winter.
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
Build a mini-putt hole
In a group of three or four, design and build one themed, ready-to-play mini-putt hole from lumber and plywood. Four individual checkpoints track your work from the first pencil sketch to a reflection after play testing.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
CO₂ dragster
Design, draw, carve and race a CO₂-powered dragster from a basswood blank. Thumbnails to a full-size Fusion drawing, then band saw, rasp and sandpaper, then a timed run down the track.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Tabletop carnival games
Design and build a small carnival game that fits on a table, runs for an afternoon at a school event, and is fair, fun and hard to break. Wood, laser-cut graphics, and optional lights, sound and scoring.
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
Every object tells a story
Design prompt: tell a compelling story about sustainability. Technical skill: laser cutting, with vinyl wall lettering for the label. Displayed museum-style.