FHD 2021 Week 35

Lots of good collaboration this week. Here are the highlights…

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SmartMargin improvements

Dave, Anthony, and I made some major improvements to our custom project estimating / benchmarking software (called SmartMargin).

You know you’re on the right track when the smiles are this big while building custom software!

John Brown hits the road

Jocelyn and Dan delivered the John Brown traveling exhibit to its first venue–the Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence, KS. It was really nice to have the founding institution for this project be so close to home!

The artwork for the project was commissioned from Brad Sneed. It’s quite striking.

Sculptural interpretive element

Anthony designed an amazing interpretive sculpture inspired by newspaper printing presses. So good. There will be plenty more to share here as the design evolves beyond this first draft.

Vapes exhibit

Chuck and Austin invited several of us to Kauffman Museum to talk shop.

We discussed challenges with interactive units and reviewed some pieces of the exhibit we helped them produce on our CNC machine. It was fun to compare notes about how to make better exhibits.

Artifact case prototype

Dan made a prototype of Graham’s subtly glowing artifact case design. It’s hard to capture in photos, but the effect is very cool in real life.

Showcase prototype engineering

Mark, Dan, Isaac, and I worked on the design of our new showcase system currently in development.

Here we’re putting Isaac’s aerospace engineering degree to the test to remove weight and increase stiffness in the steel frame.

With all of the products we’re building each week and the many processes involved, the challenge of passing on institutional knowledge becomes quite difficult.

Thankfully Mark is a good teacher!

…and Jocelyn is a good student!