In-Out Board

Being an RA means that my residents expect to know if I am around or not.   To aid in this my Hall Director requires all student staff members for the building post and update an in-out board.

When I got started this year I still had no idea what my in-out board should look like.  to rectify this problem I looked online and gathered some ideas.

From looking online I discovered a few designs that were popular but in the end I did not like any of them.  For my board I was looking for something that would be easy to change and had no parts the would walk away on it.  For the most part the in-out boards posted on line had two common designs.  The first was a tack board covered in paper with a push pin used to show my location.  I did not like that because it has a small pin that might get lost plus after a small amount of time the board starts to look bad because of all the holes.  the second design was a hanging sign with a number of labels to describe the RAs location.  To update the board the RA moved a paper clip or clothes pin to the right spot.  I was not thrilled with this solution either because the clip is again something that may get list plus it adds weight to the board.

My solution for the in-out board was to do a pin wheel type board where I rotated a disk to show my location.  It is light and has no parts that may become lost.  It is also very easy to move while heading out the door

I made the design in Adobe Illustrator but I am sure many programs will work to create this.  I then printed it on card stock and laminated it.  I wanted something that was rigid and would be able to survive the whole year.  If you would like the design It is available through the links at the bottom of this post

Links

Illustrator File - In-Out Board

PDF File - In-Out Board

Conference Preperation

I signed up to be the budget chair for a conference that my school is hosting.  This is not an entirely new experience for me because I was the registration chair for a conference we held the previous year.  This conference has an expected attendance of about 80 people which isn't all that big but it is still a good experience for me.  Because I was the registration chair last year the registration chair for this year and myself decided to work together and create one tracking spreadsheet for both committees.  I think that this is a great way to go about things because first we are friends and work very well together and second because registration and budget are tied very closely together.  This spreadsheet take the registration information that is inputted into the google sheet by the registration chair and then calculates the amount each delegate needs to pay based on the number of people signed up for the conference.  I think this is extremely cool.

So here is the spreadsheet that I put together to accomplish this task.  It is a bit cobbled together and not the most stable thing if you have no idea how it works but it will do the job.  I am very excited to start inputing information into the sheet and seeing how well it works.

One thing that I would like to work on better is programming and especially creating google and excel spreadsheet to accomplish complex tasks such as these.

Attachment:

Conference Budget and Registration Spreadsheet

Door Decorations Mario (Part 3)

To cut the door decs out I printed templates of all the parts that I needed for all the designs onto card stock.  I felt card stock would hold up to being used as a cutting template better then just computer paper.  The templates for this project are included in part 2 under attachments.  I then cut out the pieced and set those aside.

Next I readied all of the construction paper blanks that I would need for the project.  I did them all at the same time so that I only needed to do a single process at a time.  To cut the blanks I used a paper cutter.  The blanks were rectangle of paper a little larger then the finished shape.  It needed to be large enough to tape the cutting template onto the stack and staple 4 to 8 blanks together.  I only stapled on teh outside so that I would not have any hole on the finished product.

For most of my cuts I was able to use a scissors.  The outside curves that were not to complex I could cut 8 sheets of construction paper at one time.  For the more complex shapes I did four at a time.  I did notice however that when I cut more then 4 sheet my edge would come out a bit harry and raged.  I did have to use an X-Acto knife for tight corners and inside shapes.  On Boo I decided to cut out the eyes and the edge of the wing.  To do that I used the X-Acto knife.

After everything was cut I started my assembly.  I decided to use a glue stick because it doesn't wrinkle the paper like Elmer's glue does.  I think that maybe a different glue would be a good choice because it has already started to debond.  Everything on these door decs was cut out in construction paper by hand except for 2 features.  The eyes on the mushrooms I used a template and a large black Sharpie, and on the Goomba I also used a large black Sharpie to create the mouth.  The last thing I want to draw your attention to is that on my door decs I did not put the pupils on any of my figures.  I did this because I had a deadline for getting it tone and because it would add another step to the process.  If I were to remake them I think that adding the pupils would give it a more finished look.

This project was a large time commitment for me.  It took 2 or three hours of researching and designing and then an additional 9 hours to actually cut the door decs out and construct them.  I did it all by myself but with the help of a few people the time will be greatly reduced.

Below are the finished door decs.  If you want to make some of your own feel free to download the plans in part 2.  Just as a last not I made all my figures 7 inches in the longest direction.

Door Decorations Mario (Part 2)

After I finished my research I decided that I liked the Ideas that the other RAs had, but I thought theirs looked a bit crude.  To fix this I started out by designing the layout in of all the shapes in Adobe Illustrator.  I imported the picture I found on line then started to trace over or recreate the sections of the shape that I wanted to cut out of paper.  It took me about 2 or 3 hours to create all the designs.
Below are pictures of my finished computer drawings as well as the actual documents.

As you look at the attachments you will notice 2 things.  The first is that there are not 6 documents.  If you noticed Mario and Luigi are the same figure just with a different color hat.  I did this to make it easier to create.  The second thing you may notice is that there is a shell document.  I originally thought I would create a shell as well.  After spending a few minutes on this I decided that I did not like the look of the shell and so did not finish the design.  As a side note I also considered making a Bullet Bill and a Yoshi but also did not think they would work out.  The Bullet Bill is to complected to make it look good and Yoshi had simular problems. 

Attachments:
Boo
Goomba
Red/Green Shell (Not Completed)
Mario/Luigi
Red/Green Mushroom

Door Decorations Mario (Part 1)

My first project I want to post is a set of door decorations for my residents.  I did these a few weeks ago and am very proud of them.  As an RA (Resident Advisor) we want to create an inviting environment.  To that end we create door decorations for all the residents on our floors.  For this round I created a Mario themed set of door decs.

I have 32 residents on my floor including myself and 13 staff members to create door decs for.  In total that is 45 decs.  For this semester I decided to create 6 different designs and I made 8 of each of these designs.  That means I decided to make a total of 48 door decs.

I started out this project by researching images on the internet for images that I thought would look good cut out of construction paper.  I had the most luck with simplistic backgrounds and how to draw tutorials.  Here are some of the images that I took Inspiration from

Goomba

Shell

Mario

Boo

Mushroom

Here are some actual door decs other RAs have made with this same theme

Something New

So, I decided that I wanted to start working on some projects that I have in the back of my head.  This blog is mostly just for fun to see how it will work.  I do not intend to keep updating this regularly but I do want to put current and perspective projects on here.