Milestone #1

Tanvi and I attended the information session about the fabric bucket at the College of Textiles that was held by Dr. Bradford. We learned valuable information about how we would be grading, and, therefore, started to find lightweight structures that would increase the water capacity of our designs afterwards with the rest of the team. Because of this, we discarded our designs that included a filter and any metal structure ideas, and would only increase the mass of the bucket and decrease our store.

We also asked about our current ideas of beeswax as a coating. Dr. Bradford said that beeswax is very brittle when solidifies and does not bend. This can lead to cracks and water leakage. Next, we asked about our idea of using latex as a laminate, and Dr. Bradford said that it had never been done before.

Dr. Bradford told us about all the multipliers. This included using three of out of the four fabric types, which includes woven, non-woven, braided, and knit. Our top fabric idea is to use canvas, which is a woven structured fabric. We also considered polypropylene, but that fabric has a non-woven structure and, therefore, would most likely not stand under the pressure of holding over a gallon of water. Another possibility is polyester because it is lightweight, but it is also porous. A similar fabric is nylon.

Dr. Bradford noted that it is best to have a minimum amount of seams, but at least one seam is best, for no seams makes the structure of the bucket essentially a sack and the fabric groups at the top. This sack design also adds more mass.