MakeShift
Photography by Jill Butler
The Scenario: A commercial real estate mogul wants to put a life-size sculpture of a cow made to look like Superman atop a tower crane at his latest development. A local artist fabricated the bovine. However, the engineers she has contacted to design a mounting solution are scared to touch the problem for under $50,000. Here is why: the cow needs to stand proud on a 40-story tower crane throughout summer and fall in a city that is at high risk for hurricanes. You boast that you could do it for $20.
The Challenge: Create a makeshift solution to securely mount Super Cow on top of the tower crane (no details about where “on top” were given). The cow is a shell structure made of ½" fiberglass and weighs 100 lbs. Tools and materials at your disposal include materials that can be reasonably extracted from the environment and items on the supply list. Once you deliver your solution, the site crew will get everything where you want it using another crane.
Supply List:
1 life-size fiberglass cow
1 roll of chicken wire
2 rolls of duct tape
6 1-liter bottles of cola
$20 budget
Surplus of cardboard boxes and packing peanuts
Variety of tools (drills, saws, etc.)
Simple welding and woodworking equipment
Send a detailed description of your MakeShift solution with sketches and/or photos to [email protected] by Sept. 30. If duplicate solutions are submitted, the winner will be determined by the quality of the explanation and presentation. The most plausible and most creative solutions will each win a MAKE T-shirt and a SWISSMEMORY™ USB Victorinox 512MB. Think positive and include your shirt size and contact information with your description. Good luck! For winners’ names plus readers’ solutions to previous MakeShift challenges, visit makezine.com/makeshift.
William Lidwell is a consultant with Stuff Creators Design Studio and co-author of the book Universal Principles of Design.