Anna Ly

So because it was my birthday, I wanted to design a birthday tiara to wear. Unfortunately chaos ensued. I bought a dollar tiara made out of some plastic from target. When I came iln, I created all of the code for the GoGo board and then attempted to make the mould for my crown. We used white styrene, which had a different melting temperature - around 170 which dipped to about 160ish when we opened the oven. It was pretty tough trying to figure out the right temperature and time so that we got a really good melted plastic square to put over our object. SO the first time I did it, it didn't melt enough so it only got the top of the crown :( 

top of the crown

Then I melted the plastic too much and when I used the vacuum, it sucked the plastic through the holes of the tiara and trapped the tiara :( . I tried remelting the plastic with a heat gun but it started melting the tiara at the same time. IT WAS CHAOOOOS. Below you see me banging the plastic off with some pliers. The picture does not capture my sweating face so well. 

Me banging out the plastic 

So instead I decided to make my own crown using a visor! I sprayed the visor with pam to make sure it comes out of the plastic mold when the vacuum forms the plastic around it. When I vacuumed it around the visor, it pushed down on the visor but when I turned off the vacuum, it pushed the visor back up so I didn't lose the mold!! 

It was still a bit shallow so I decided to melt it a bit more and form it with the back of a screwdriver. 

Then I mixed the polymer - 61D so it was a bit flexible but still hard enough to balance on my head. I poured it in and made it red. I put three LEDs into objects sitting on top of the crown (the gems). The GO GO board was coded so that if the light sensor in the hat went above 210, then the lights go off in sequence and beep at the same time. 

My finished crown is below! I cut a bit of the polymer so it looked cleaner. 

If it doesn't show up above, watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WyVmemfGdc&feature=youtu.be