Weekly Review

This week would be described, at the least, amazing. We started out with essentially nothing, just a design that we saw at a farm down the road and thought it would be cool to use it for our design, other than that we really didn't have much. The first day we spent discussing the triangular framing plan with both Dave and Brad and quickly came up with the actual design we wanted to put in. We learned how to make the frame steady by crossing two 4 by 6 beams over each other and bolting them together using carriage bolts, lock washers, washers and bolts. Next we learned how to level them, find our distance off the ground and make sure the balance was just right between both the tree and our steel beams. Drilling holes in the steel beams was a new found, exciting process which quickly became frustrating given the amount of thrust one has to put in just to make a hole in the steel. Drilling into the tree was much easier and I learned how to use a compression wrench, which again was not as straining as using the regular drill. One very different method of leveling beams that we used was called a string level, it essentially serves the same purpose as using a regular level, but you secure a piece of string from one end to the other then dangle a small leveling device from the middle which tells you the level. One big surprise I had was when we decided to install metal brackets into the tree, helping to hold the frame up instead of just bolting the frame right to the tree. This was discovered when we talked to brad about how much trees sway in the wind and realized that if we had bolted the frame to the tree its self there would be no room for the structure to move with the tree. This weeks progress will surely benefit us for the next two weeks because we already have the platform done, and now we can focus on the walls and roof for the last weeks of our project.