Update 2/11: Audio clips of me playing the dizi added. The sound quality isn't very good, as I recorded it in my room with my $7 headset, but it's enough to hear what it sounds like. The playing quality also isn't very good, because I've probably spent a total of under 10 hours playing the dizi.

Finally!

I spotted this task when I first joined SF0. You see, I love making things (Hence the "make things go" part of my six-word description of my life). My profession involves making machines, ideas, methods, algorithms, and the like. My hobbies include making music, friend, props, sets, and blanket forts. How could I pass up this opportunity to create something for SF0?


Previous Ideas (or: you can skip this if you want)

Of course, the biggest problem, the thing that kept me from completing this before now, is that I didn't want to do the first thing that I could. How could I represent one of the biggest parts of my life in SF0 with something lame, like a series of photos of the folding of a paper airplane?

First I wanted to deconstruct and then reconstruct a mechanical adding machine, to complete the two parallel tasks. After getting the cover off the adding machine, however, I realized that it would take...weeks of solid work, hundreds of hours at least, even if it was possible at all to do by hand. So I, regretfully, abandoned that idea. I've included some pictures of that at the end of the praxis, just because I think it's very interesting.

Then I had the idea of adding a substantial loft to the lounge of my dorm, utilizing its copious vertical space. I got to the point of having plans, and almost ordered wood for it. Unfortunately the school decided at the last minute that it couldn't allow that, for liability reasons. It will be nice to not have anyone liable for my safety when I graduate...

After that I floundered without ideas for a while. Then, over winter break, I noticed three things. A problem, a solution, and that I had free time. It was time!

The Conception

I have a dizi. A dizi is a pretty cool traditional Chinese bamboo flute. One of my friends got it for me several years ago, but I never did learn to play it well. One of the reasons for this is it's hard to transport. It doesn't have a case, and in order to have it play nicely (instead of sounding like a piece of PVC with holes drilled in it), it needs a couple easily lost peripherals, a particular kind of membrane, and the stuff you use to stick the membrane on. I lost the membranes my friend gave me, and never found others.



A dizi (the flute), with dimo (membrane, inside the folded paper) and e jiao (hard glue-ish stuff, in the plastic tube).


But wait! All three of these problems could be solved with a case to transport them together. It would protect the dizi, and keep everything together. To cement myself in this task I ordered the dimo and e jiao, and started practicing fingerings.

The Construction

I'm lucky to know my father. He is an incredibly skilled man, and, among other things, carves a fair amount. Let me acknowledge right now that he helped me throughout this task by providing advice and tools.

One thing I knew from the beginning is that I wanted this to be classy. If I was going to make a case I was going to do it RIGHT, and nothing would get in my way. I wanted to come out of this with something I could be proud of, that I would show to my friends and go "Look! I made this! Isn't it awesome?". Several decisions were made based on that. I wanted a high-quality wood, even if it was harder to carve. I wanted to finish it somehow (oil, lacquer, stain, whatever). I wanted to line the inside, probably with velvet. As I worked on it the final vision of what it should be played out, and almost every time there was a choice, I took the one that I thought would look more...professional.

The rest of this will be documented as captions in the pictures below.