For making the Van Boat our team set ourselves out with a two piece project, the one square meter house and a pontoon base structure. The pontoon has the primary function of keeping the house afloat in water. The plan was so that once both pieces were built, the house would sit nicely on top of the pontoon platform, which leads me to the construction of the pieces.
For the pontoon structure, we got many empty bottles that could hold from 20-100 liters of water. We then built a rectangular build that would enclose the bottles in an organised fashion. To increase the chances of the house to float, we added miscellaneous left over tubs and bottles, which was woven into the secure rectangle form using rope. (Pictures to come in the next blog!)
For the house, we stuck to the instructions and kept the same core frame. We then made small variations in the measurements of the doorway/entrance, number and size of windows and number of structural supports – all to suit the requirements for successful and confortable boat navigation. Lastly, the paneling also changed dew to the changes in measurements. There were some difficulties and confusion but we managed past it..
The building took a total of two intense days. Our team had to be organised and have a unified understanding of our continuously changing plan of action.
We are now in the final stages of the painting of the Van Boat and will test run it later today. We will blog our results as soon as they are in..! (tbc)