The Final Project- Recycled Materials.

The Recycled Army Tank

              I first started off this project in a completely different direction.  Since I had a lot of recyclable cans, I wanted to cut them and create something big (as usual) and interactive.  But as soon as I started working with the cans, I quickly realized they were not an easy material to play with.  Even the sharp box cutter couldn't compete with the can's material.  So.. after a quick moment of thinking, I decided to take a different approach.  Instead of altering the cans, I would use them to my advantage as a whole.  Therefore, I decided to construct a tank.  This inspiration mainly coming from the color green of the Mountain Dew cans.. and that of the Canada Dry bottle.  I thought I could easily transform these into some playable army toy.

            Even though when I was younger I was very much into stuffed animals and soft cuddly toys, I also had a thing for building cars and machines out of Knex or legos, etc.  So building a tank was kinda like going back to childhood to a certain extent.  So I took the cans and tried to glue them together.  But... I quickly realized this was another fault of the cans.  They did not stcik together easily.                                                      

                So I took my long lost friend (ducktape) and decided it would work a lot better.  I wrapped the bottom of the cans all the way around, keeping them in a straight line.  From here I repeated it... (for two sides of the tank).  Cut the canada dry bottle's bottom off and reinforced it back into the bottle, then decided to paint it half green.  From here I also constructed the base of the tank using leftover cardboard.  Also mounting the top of a can i had previously cut off to serve as the door of the tank.  In the end I used green, brown, and black paint to help the tank have a better appearance.  Overall I think the paint enhanced the piece the most.  Otherwise it would lack in tank appearance.  And in a last minute decision, I decided to paint over the blue tape with green paint.

             I must admit its not my best piece of the semester, but it was challenging working with cans.  And I'm at least proud I constructed something out of this hard to use material.