Samantha Wallace
Elevated Clothing Rack
Gisborne Girls' High School
Year 11 Materials Technology: Half year project
Teacher: Heather McIntyre
Samantha Wallace lives on a farm. In winter, washing and, more particularly drying, the ever-present mountains of muddy work clothes becomes a real issue. When Samantha's Technology teacher asked her to find an issue and develop a solution for it, Samantha's mother was quick to suggest the idea of building a clothes drier.
After discussion, Samantha decided that a clothes rack above the fireplace in the lounge would be just the ticket. The issue was a good one – a real need clearly existed – but before Samantha could build the rack she had to consider a stipulation her teacher, Heather McIntyre, had placed on the projects: all of them had to embody a symbolic element.
In Samantha's case this didn't present too much of a challenge. Because Samantha and her Mother and her sister are all 'horse-mad', she decided to satisfy this requirement by designing and creating some model horse shoes. These, she figured, would not only be decorative, the larger ones could be used to hang underwear or socks that might otherwise slip off.
Before the class started their individual projects, they experimented with a range of materials and working techniques – timber, pewter casting, mosaic, sandblasting, screen printing, soft stone sculpture, resin, and polymer clay. Samantha was particularly taken with resin and pewter as materials.
"I decided these materials would work well to make horseshoes. I ended up making little pewter horseshoes that were purely for decoration. I drilled holes in them so that made them look more like horseshoes. I nailed them on square headed copper nails so they would look like the nails in horse shoes. I chose to make bigger ones out of resin because they would be lighter and easier to balance and therefore stop my clothes rack from hanging down on one side."
Samantha wanted the resin horshoes to be silver so she experimented firstly with adding silver paint to the resin but they didn't set. She then tried tinfoil but found it looked a bit rough. In the end, she made the horseshoes with aluminium shoes inside them. This looked good and made the shoes more durable.
When designing the clothes rack, Samantha had to take into account the space it had to fit in front of the fire and the mounting bolts that were already in the ceiling above. Samantha used pine for the frame of the clothes rack, finished with polyurethane.
"As a family we decided this was a good idea as our house has a wooden ceiling and walls. I could have stained it a dark colour to match but we decided that the pine looked good and would be easier to fit in with another house if we moved. It also perfectly matches a photo frame that is sitting on the mantle piece."
A pulley system was devised to raise and lower the rack, with the help of a neighbour.
Samantha says she really enjoyed the project because it involved creating something her family really needed. "I really enjoyed doing things in the workshop. I got to use lots of tools and I got to use a variety of materials. It was good that I could make mistakes and redo things and that was not a problem. It was really cool to see the look of pleasure on my families face when I took it home. We've been using it all the time since I took it home.
"I struggle with other subjects so it was really good to come to a class where I felt like I was doing something I enjoyed, was useful and that I could succeed in. It was a real challenge for me to get the required stuff in my book but I knew I clearly understood what this project's needs were. I kept handing my book in and my teacher was able to prompt me as to what was in my head and I got there in the end.
Teacher comment
"Sam's keenness showed through by her voluntary lunchtime sessions! It was clearly evident that there was lots of discussion around this product happening at home and even the neighbours contributed to helping her work out what kind of pulley system would work best. Sam's family had a real need for this product and that was a good motivating factor. Sam is not enthusiastic about writing so taking lots of photos helped provide evidence of her practice and the final photos clearly demonstrated that her outcome was very fit for purpose."
