Searching for the Right Material?

Listening to Bamboo as our option in the last class, we four decided to look around for bamboo options that we could use.

Struggle : As me, Claudia and Sarah are not from this country it becomes difficult for us to know where to begin with. Its always easier when you are around known surrounding to find and search for materials.

Still we didn’t give up and we started of positively. To start with we looked at aluminium and searched in Kingston to find some contractor. We all collectively went to ADNOR LTD. to figure out the cost of cutting and prices of aluminium sheets. When we went there we thought it was shut but we were quite adamant we called on the office number and talked to the person in charge and went inside the factory to see different types of aluminium sheets and width. The person in Charge said he would charge us £40 for cutting of one tray.

While coming out we all felt that it was quite expensive and we can’t consider aluminium as it would be sharp and a lot of effort would go in to make it user friendly.

Secondly we looked at bamboo, we went to WICKES (store with kitchen, home and garden materials), We were successful in finding bamboo but were unable to find the right size as the available bamboo sticks were small, plus we were unsure how we will make it straight as it comes cylindrical in shape.

Again I went back to Prachi and requested her to ask her professor to let us know if he knew someone who could help. From there we got to know about “THE CHARCOAL PEOPLE” and my friend sent us an address. We as a team went to the address and we couldn’t find anyone as it was an empty house and neighbours weren’t able to help us either. Coming back we were quite disappointed as we didn’t have time and we had to come up with the material we wanted to use.

On our way back we saw these two young men working on a roof and looked like carpenters. We didn’t take a second to think just asked them for help. This was a big thing for us to just go out and randomly start asking people for help.

But I realised that in class Janja would often say to leave our comfort zone and I think at that moment we understood that we needed to figure out and ask for help. Both the guys were really helpful they explained us that we could order online but once we saw the prices we were unsure we wanted to order it as we didn’t know how we will produce it.

At last I went to my sister in India for help, she helped us by giving us pre-laminated particle board and leatherite to cover it. She also explained the process of creating the product we had in mind without compromising its main features- Compact, lightweight, foldable.