Final Project Specifications and Constraints

Recap: I am making a purely artistic, cannot be actually used for violence guillotine. It will be shorter at about 6 to 7 feet with and fully disassemble for transit. It will be bedazzled and cute to match the aesthetic of the McBling, the vision is a shiny phone case with rhinestones and flashes of color.

Top 5 specifications I have are aesthetic, durability, maneuverability, reliability and purpose. I feel like the aggressive over consumerism vibe of the aesthetic of McBling with things like celebrity worship and shiny things can really work with my projects purpose. The two essentially go hand in hand, the aesthetic distracts from the ugly interior, which was seemingly the purpose of the aesthetic at the time as well. The ugliness of the 2008 recession was ultimately covered by celebrity culture and diet fads.  The purpose is to demonstrate that in an artistic piece, hiding ugliness and truth beneath a shiny pretty veneer.

For durability I need it to be able to handle multiple quick drops without falling off the track or jamming. Every connection point has to be secure to get a clean drop.

Maneuverability matters as I’ll need it to be disassembled to come to the expo, therefore it will need to easily come apart and come back together. The bigger pieces will ride on the roof of my car. When it comes to reliability I need it to drop every time without any wavering, which the stop sign complicates. What I mean-it’s a lot lighter than a blade would be so I have to ensure that the weights used can produce the same effect every time. I have a pretty good idea of what to do, it’s all about configuration.

Top 5 constraints:

Time, metal working, incorporating my aesthetic, acquiring certain materials and size are all constraints I am currently dealing with. Time makes this project feel a little rushed therefore I worry that I might get something wrong along the way so I have to also plan a week for tests and failures. I’m hoping it’s functional before the Tortured Poets release, I feel like it will be cathartic.
Another constraint is metal working, I have to cut the stop sign and that seems really difficult. I also have to add an attachment point so it can attach to the rope to be dropped as well be able to be changed at a moments notice. I also have to consider the aggressive weather stripping and padding I have to add to keep it from being a weapon. I will have to dull the edges significantly as well and that will take a good chunk of time because the intended purpose is not a weapon.
My aesthetic in my head and sketches work, the issue I have is time and the aesthetic. Bedazzling and glittering a whole guillotine will take some serious man hours. Bedazzling boots for a concert with e6000 (wear gloves and a mask) took me over 4 days so this will be a little more than that easily. An additional thought is to paint various patterns that represent the aesthetic with sporadic bedazzling to make it a little quicker.

I worry about the size it has to be as stop signs are quite large and if it is wide it might not go in or on my car very easily. These are all little things though that I think I can trouble shoot. The stop sign is also a bit of an issue, as it’s pretty expensive to get one so I am having trouble sourcing one. They’re usually around 30 dollars and I don’t really want a nice one if I’m going to cut and paint it so I’m figuring that out but I don’t want it to eat up too much time.

other ideas of restraints: