Rainbow Inflatables

1st Project of the semester in 4D Intermedia! In this project we were told to get into groups of 2 or 3 and create big inflatable objects that we would display around the Westmont campus. The materials that we were given included plastic tablecloths, tape, irons, and fans. The irons were to melt the plastic so that the tablecloths would hold together that inflatable shape, and the fans were used to blow air into the inflatable "tubes" so that they would hold their shapes. I was paired up with Sharon and Evelyn for this project and we had lots of ideas. We really wanted to create something that would make Westmont students be in awe as they walked around our beautiful campus, and we dreamed of making something that would be so colorful and exciting to see, as it is the beginning of the semester and new school year.

We came to the decision of making a rainbow inflatable, with its colors branching out. The original idea was to have it extend over the arches in front of the prayer chapel area, but it turned out that there were no outlets to plug our fan in. So we decided to have the rainbow extend from the balcony right outside the Ridley-Tree museum, and end on the ground, right outside of Lisa DeBoer's office window and in front of the doors to the Art building. We began our process of building the inflatable by picking our colors, which were white, turquoise, and pink. We then measured out the length of each rainbow piece, folded each in half, and ironed the edges together to form the tubes. Then we cut shape patterns through the middle of each tube and ironed those edges together.

After finishing the tubes, we used the white tablecloths to cut out clouds so that we could have a giant cloud covering the fan and extending the rainbow out of it, and mini clouds that we attached to each large tube. Some of the ironing created small holes in the tubes, so we used the tape to cover up the holes as well as attach the mini clouds.





When we were finished with our entire inflatable, we went to our spot, plugged in the fan, and immediately our rainbow was blown up. It took some teamwork to extend the giant rainbow inflatable tubes over the balcony, so Sharon stayed at the top, Evelyn helped send the tubes down towards the ground, and I stood on the ground below moving the tubes into the positions we wanted them to be in. Overall, it turned out really nicely and as we had expected it to!

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