School is in Succession I, 2022
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Fiberglass, resin, steel tubing, polycarbonate tennis balls, marker. 24" x 18" x 10".
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Detail Image: Top of the desk, showing the innocent graffiti of school children. The numbers are significant of the victim statistics in the project description, and the interactions show a light-hearted but deeply sad conversation of unfortunate topics.
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Detail Image: The top is removed from the frame to be used as a shield by school children in the event of an active shooter.
Tactical Design: desktop is constructed to be able to stop rifle rounds.
Lightweight Design: can be easily carried by an elementary student on the run.
Educational Design: shows the need of an education to properly address the issues at hand.
On average, 12 children die per day due to shootings, while another 32 are shot and injured. There have been 213 mass shootings in 2022 already. That number has probably gone up by the time you finish reading this. This desk is the band-aid politicians are content with to address these student deaths. The threat of guns still linger outside even a guard-ridden school, and the psychological trauma lingers within school walls.
This project was made right after the mass school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Personally, I was trying to avoid seeing the coverage of the event, but online I was watching videos from outside the school with the policemen taking their time, afraid to engage in the horrific events going on in the school. Angered by these clips, I immediately began working on a design and concept, trying to make a piece that would shock people awake to the simple issue of calling for gun regulation in America.
Through YouTube videos I was able to select the method I thought would be best for this piece to construct a bulletproof desktop, which was a fiberglass layup using sheets of fiberglass blanket and fiberglass resin to bond them together. This top was put on a frame I welded from both rectangular and circular steel tubing.
Displayed at the d.school for Spring 2022 Meet the Makers in Stanford, CA.