After 5 weeks, fabrication is beginning to wrap up and I had to come up one last project to complete my set of items. Going into the project, I had a long checklist of things I wanted it to accomplish. Firstly, it had to be absurd, but I also wanted the object to be useful to me in some way and also display all the other items I created throuthout the course. After meeting with Ian to help develop my idea, he suggested a complex operation to do something simple. Like turning on a lamp. Immediately I knew that was the direction I wanted the project to go.

Over the course, I realized I accidentally created objects that were all absurd in different ways, and it was a theme I wanted to continue. A simple task done in a complex way was the perfect capstone to my collection. It also felt fitting for all my previous items to specifically fit into the lamp in order to turn it on. Almost like a satisfying bookend to the class. The project was also a good opportunity to use two live edge pieces of wood I picked up earlier in the semester.

I spent a lot of time planning and sketching the design and cuts for this piece. Not only because I wanted it to turn out well, but also because I only had one shot with my materials. Any other piece of live edge wood would have led to a different end result.I met with Phil to go over how to make the cuts and secure the two pieces together, consulted with many second years, and shop staff to make sure my idea was sane and double check my approach to fabricating the piece.

The first step, and longest step of the process, was mounting the wood togther. With advice from Phil and Ian, I opted to use two metal U-channel pieces to hold the wood togther with inserts and machine screws. I had trouble using the router to create the channels though. At first I wanted to create thin channels, but there weren't any router bits small enough, so I pivoted to cutting out space for the whole piece. Perhaps I could have used a router, but being worried about breaking my materials, and with advice from Niko, I decided to chisel out all for spaces for the metal channels to sit. Two for each piece of wood, 4 inches long, 1 inch deep, and 1/2 inch wide it was a lot of work. Hours of hammering and hand soreness later it was finally done. Luckily since the channels were only holding material together it did not have to be pretty.

While creating the channels more hurdles kept. A small peice of wood broke off one piece of wood and had to be glued back in place, and the metal channels had to be drilled out to make space for the machine screws and lamp wires. With each hurdle I became terrified more things would break or ultimately go wrong.

Once the material was mounted I began creating the sections for each of my previously fabricated items. I routered out spaces for the chairs and box (mostly without a fence since trying to clamp a guide down took incredibly long). Then I used the laser cutter to engrave spaces for the cups where the large useless cup would act as the lampshade.

After a lot of sanding, the project was slowly coming together. I opted to stain the top of table to give it a more professional look, and while the stain I found was darker than I inteded I think it helped the two different pieces of wood fit together well. To wrap the project up, I bought several hairpin table legs from Lowe's in order for the piece to stand on it's own.

Seeing the lamp stand on its own was an incredibly satisfying feeling. All the effort and time spent was worth it and the piece came together just about as I had imagined. Due to time constraints, I did not implement the absurd functionality aspect of the object, but I feel the piece is absurd in it of itself. Now I have a new piece of furniture for my apartment.

- Matt Blanco