Improvisation Inflatables – Victoria Ding

I was not sure what most of my inflatables would look like before starting them. Before I started making any of them I went to a craft store to look for tape in colors I liked. I bought three rolls of tape that were black, purple, and red. For my first inflatable I wanted to start with something easy and familiar. In the previous class my team made a large octahedron so I decided to make a small version of the same shape.

For my 2nd inflatable I wanted to include a circle to learn how to tape curves together. I first cut out a blue circle then attached large rectangles around the circumference.

For my 3rd inflatable I wanted to increase the difficulty by using a circular pyramid. The pyramid ended up looking like a plain circle because it was too small. I attached large rectangles like inflatable 2 but this time I added more pieces to create a bend.

For inflatable 4 I cut out many pieces before taping anything together. I picked some rectangles and trapezoids then taped them all together.

All my inflatables up to this point were somewhat similar. They were all large and convex. For my 5th inflatable I wanted something skinny and long. I cut out long rectangles and rolled them into cylinders. To prevent the right angles from changing while taping, I inserted a PVC pipe into each cylinder so I could control the shape and tape everything together.

These inflatables took a lot of time to make but I had fun while making them. This is unlike any any project I have done in the past and I really liked seeing everybody’s innovative shapes during class. I learned multiple ways to fix problems during building, such as using a PVC pipe to maintain shape. If I had another assignment like this I would like to work with someone else so we could fix problems that could easily be solved with multiple hands. I would also cut bigger pieces because they are sometimes easier to work with than small ones. I liked hearing about other people’s thought processes during class and look forward to doing more projects in the future!