Blog 6

 After finalizing the spikeball court schematics and getting approval from both Mrs. Dyer and Mr. Looney, we began to site the space. Before we excavated the dirt, we elected to use yarn to outline the circumference of the court, and spray-painted it to make sure that space was properly defined. As we were expecting it to rain, we then began to snake the circumference of the court by removing cutting and removing the edging to make sure that we would we be removing dirt from the correct area. Furthermore, we were afraid that the rain would wash away the spray paint, and wanted to make sure that the border would be both defined and intact. We then asked Mr. Baker if there were some sort of tool that would expedite the process of removing the dirt within the designated area. He then recommended that we use an edging machine (a machine tool with a revolving cutter, for dressing edges, as of boards), and was kind enough to actually rent one on our behalf. This tool would be especially helpful because it would consistently cut 3 inches deep (the depth required for our project), and would do so without fail. He then used us how to use the contraption, and allowed Mourad (one of my group members) to actually carry out cutting and sectioning off the dirt. After the dirt was cut 3 inches deep, we were then tasked with actually picking up and moving the dirt from the lawn. Although simple, it was a physically exhausting task, and required us to essentially remove several tons of dirt at a time. After completely removing all of the dirt from the soon-to-be spikeball court, we immediately contacted the accounting and funding department within the White House regarding the funding of materials for our project. We were then directed towards Mrs. Casey St. Laurent, and was kind enough to place an order for sand, weed barrier, and rubber edging for our project.


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