Isa Verna

Wind Tunnel Test Box

I designed a box. A really big one. A 600 pound one. Beta Technologies needed to ship one of our models all the way to California to test in NASA’s wind tunnel and I was lucky enough to design the box for it! The model weighs in at about 400 pounds and measures approximately 8 feet by 5 feet so the box not only had to be huge but incredibly sturdy to both hold the model and make it all the way to California from Vermont. There were two goals for this box; it had to be forklift-able from any side, and completely done and made in only 9 days. When the model is stored, its wings and empennage tips can be taken off, as well as its propellers. With that in mind, I found a box design one of my coworkers did for a similar model and modified it to fit my needs. The wings and empennage tips are stored on the sides of the box where I made the ribs dip down to fit and support them. The main body’s nose and tail are much more delicate than the rest of the model, so the body’s rib holes are cut out at different heights so they will take more load in the middle of the aircraft than the sides. That way, if the model were to rock up or down, it would have supports but the majority of the weight would be in the center. In less than a week, I had reworked the CAD file I found in Onshape, talked to multiple people about my design, and then sent it to the woodshop to be made— successfully meeting my deadline!

Newspaper Skirt

I model a lot in my free time and most of the concepts for shoots are created by my photographers. I told one of them about my idea for a newspaper skirt. Picking up on my enthusiasm, she offered to feature it in a shoot that weekend, giving me four days to somehow create this elaborate skirt from scratch. Thankfully, I had been stockpiling Technician newspapers in the few months prior. The skirt is completely made of newspaper, embroidery thread, super glue and a couple of dress clasps. I first started by creating tubes of newspaper for the body of the skirt, and assembled the waistband with folded newspaper. I then sewed the newspaper tubes to the waistband and then to each other, working my way down to the desired length. After I modeled my skirt and posted it to Instagram, it got a lot of attention. The Technician reached out to feature me in one of their issues, the Sustainability Stewards wanted it displayed for their art show, and the skirt also got displayed for sale in the Eno Arts Mill Gallery! If I were to remake this skirt, I think the biggest thing I would fix is the waistband. No matter how many times you fold newspaper, it is not strong enough to hold and move several more pounds of it. I think I would wrap it around a thick ribbon and then use something to create a cast to provide extra strength and support. 

Alia Model Stands

At Beta Technologies, I sometimes work on designing and creating electric aircraft (Alia) models. We needed a better way to use them as teaching tools and the vision was to incorporate a table and a waist-high stand. I went through a myriad of different attachment iterations and finally landed on a two-pronged insert that can be placed upon a table or a tall stand. The tall stands are made of a piece of scrap metal (cut to size), a threaded metal rod with a carbon fiber covering, and an actual camera tripod mount that screws into the adapter piece to hold the model. This way, when these models are used as teaching tools, the instructor can spin, point and hold them in any direction on the tall stand, and then easily place them onto the table stand. 

Battery Demo

This is the first Study Hall demo I built! The batteries in Alia (electric aircraft) are lithium-ion batteries, and to demonstrate how they worked, I wanted to open the battery and have its parts be labeled and removable. I watched countless videos and spoke with multiple engineers on the battery team to learn exactly how these batteries worked. Once I decided on a direction, I used CAD to make a large version of a battery cell. I originally wanted the battery cap to be secured by magnets, but upon further reflection I decided a screw-on cap would be most effective. I found metallic felt for the cathode and anode, and simple black felt for the separators. I used a cotton fabric to iron vinyl on and then sew to the felt. I rolled it up and put it in the battery cell for a complete “jelly roll.” After spray painting and labeling the top, my “battery” was complete! If I were to remake this demo, I would have the cell printed at a higher infill to make it sturdier and create seams on the cotton labels instead of having a fraying raw hem.

Camera + Bag

I walked into a cute vintage shop and immediately spotted this camera. It had a $10 tag saying it was broken and in full confidence, I bought it, thinking I could fix it up, and I did! I opened it up and the mechanisms inside were jammed and needed to be mended. The film for the camera was discontinued as the camera was made in the 60s. I fixed up the insides and got an adapter to wind regular 35mm film into and she works perfectly! Now that I had fixed the camera, it needed a bag. I designed a classic over-the-shoulder satchel that has a removable camera bag insert. I sewed the bag out of canvas cotton with a leather suede interior—both the inside of the bag and the insert. I added brass hardware and “leather looking” suede on the outside. Sewing with suede was a challenge and it always wanted to move around and stretch but with lots of pinning it stayed in place fairly well. I think if I were to remake this project I would use a thicker material for the strap, as it loosens a little too easily, and I would also use a more structured interface inside since without the insert, the bag is too slouchy for my liking.

Plant Pot

I got the idea of potted plant coasters from one of my friends and ran with it. While I do have experience with spinning and knitting yarn, I have never dabbled in crochet. After watching and rewatching many youtube videos at 0.5x speed, I slowly learned how to crochet. My first creation was the plant leaf coaster to the left! I then went on to create a set of 5 leaf coasters. The real challenge for me was creating the pot. Learning how to crochet something that had tall walls and had to serve as a container, meant that it had to have structural integrity. In an attempt to strengthen this, I crocheted with a lot of tension to create tighter stitches. While I think that helped, I also think it may have been a material problem and I needed to use a different yarn.

Pottery Set

I have never worked with clay before but I signed up for a wheel class and a small cup was the first thing I created. I was looking on Pinterest and got the idea to make a matching set. I had already thrown a cup and I was able to carve divots using a potter’s needle. I then threw several more cups to carve, while thinking about how I wanted to create a pitcher. I was debating on if I wanted to essentially throw a really big cup and add on clay for the spout once it dried a bit or if I wanted to throw a big cup and pull the spout out of the existing clay. I ended up doing the latter and while initially it affected the shape, with careful movements and coaxing, I was able to retain the circular shape as much as possible. To make the handle, you essentially have a ball of clay in one hand and with the other hand wet, you stretch the clay downwards until you have a long rope attached to the ball in your hand. You cut it off at the desired length and let it dry out some before attaching it to the body. One of the mistakes I made with this project was that I didn’t anticipate the kiln shrinking the clay, so a lot of my pieces came out smaller than I made them. I also would remake my pitcher as I wanted it to be at least twice the size it came out as and make the handle a bit skinnier and more streamlined.

Still Life Drawing

This is my first ever true attempt at sketching a still life. I had the initial problem of sketching on the small side as well as not utilizing a full range of shadows. It was really fun trying to capture the lighting and shadows correctly. I found the wine bottle especially challenging as it reflected light at so many points. Making the wine bottle look rounded, while showing all the light hitting and reflecting off of it was the most challenging part!

Painting

One of my favorite pastimes is painting. It is such a big stress reliever and break from daily life. In this painting, my goal was to capture the joy and inspiration astronomy and the night sky brought to me as a little girl. I used roughly mixed bright orange and pink around the little girl to symbolize the chaos and harsh edges of life. I left the white space around her to emphasize those edges eating into her. I painted her looking up to the balloons and the sky as if she wanted to float away with them and join the stars. Using a splatter technique, I created the stars and used an uneven layer of blue to create the mystical feel of the sky. I think if I were to repaint this, I would fix the balloons. The strings holding them are completely inaccurate and I would have sketched them out before painting them.