Research
The research I did for this project was to learn about chess and learn more about the pieces in chess. I researched the meaning behind each piece and also how pieces can move on the board. I also had to learn along with my group how to play chess. Since my group had the three-way board I researched some three-way boards and also researched groups of three objects and groups of people in threes that go together.
Exercises/Activities
Some exercises and activities I did to lead up to the final were first learning how to play chess by playing online called chess.com, you’re able to play against the computer at different levels. At first, I played at the beginner level where they show you steps on which piece is the best move at the time. We did an exercise in class where we practiced platforms from basic shapes like a circle, square, and triangle, for a challenge we did a toy car. I also did an activity in class where we played jeopardy. In the jeopardy game, it would ask questions about what piece in chess was the best to use in certain scenarios and other questions were terms and the meanings in playing the game of chess. I did an exercise where my partners and I pick an object and create a slice form, so we first chose to do glasses and did I did the front view and my partner did the side view, then we decided to pick a challenge and do a trophy which was very complicated because there were a lot of circles and some were too big or small and measuring the slits to match the size of circles was complicated.
Iterations
Some iterations I did for this project were first coming up with what pieces represent the nerds best but all the pieces still correlate with the original pieces in chess. At first, the knight was going to be an old Pacman game controller which also has that L shape when playing it or it could’ve been the queen because you can move everywhere when playing with the controller. The rook I was thinking to be a school building but I decided that a science beaker would be a better fit because it also fits in with how the rook moves on the chessboard. I hand cut some pieces just to get an idea of what my pieces would like and also to test out how bristol would look which was not very good because it was very flimsy and kept ripping when I hand cut them. I decided to use my Cricut machine to get cleaner cuts and see what it would look like before using our final material. At first, we tested the chipboard with the Cricut but when it cut made the chipboard look rough and made it fragile and didn’t cut all the way through and we also knew it wouldn’t look good for our final. We then tested the white plastic material which was a lot cleaner cut even though it took two-three passes on the Cricut to cut all the way through it looked much better, but on some pieces, I still had to take an Exacto knife and cut out some pieces.
Concept Statement
Our concept for this project was to create an 80’s disco school cliques theme, where each of us has different cliques such as jocks, nerds, and skaters. When the chess pieces are on the board they are supposed to be having a “dance battle” just like in the movies. The idea was that the item that is represented for the king piece in each clique is something the other groups want and are jealous of. The nerd’s king is represented with an A which shows they get good grades and something hard for the other cliques to get. We wanted to create these pieces out of sturdy material which is made of white plastic, and to represent each different clique we painted little details on our pieces to separate each clique. All the cliques have a different color based on what we thought colors represented each clique the best, so nerds are blue, jocks are red and skaters are green.
My concept for my pieces was to create pieces that have to do with my clique, the nerds. I wanted to make pieces that you could tell what they are just by looking at them. The idea was to make nerd chess pieces based on stereotypes from 80’s movies, like nerds are in science classes and use beakers or nerds are in debates so they are behind podiums, and they wear glasses and they break when they get beat up. Stereotypes like that were the idea behind most of my pieces, and also remembering the original pieces and having the pieces I created still have something to do with the original pieces. Using the laptop as the knight because the knight moves in an L on the chessboard and when making the pieces I wanted to make sure all my pieces still correlate with the original chess pieces.
Production
I used the Cricut machine process and used white plastic material for my final pieces. My clique was the nerds with the color blue, my King is the letter A to represent the good grades that the nerds get all the time and something the other cliques are after. The Queen is a pen that represents how the queen moves on the board and can move anywhere and can also be used as a weapon by the nerds by using the pointy end to stab or poke people in the other cliques. The Bishop is a podium because nerds do debates in school and it also represents how the bishop goes forward and speaks in the game of chess. The Knight is a laptop because it has an L shape which also represents how a knight moves on the chessboard. The Rook is represented with a science beaker and also represents how the rook moves on the board which is different ways up, down, and diagonally and is also how you could shake a beaker. Finally, the Pawns are represented with broken glasses because there are multiple nerds and in the 80’s movies and skits, the jocks would punch nerds breaking their glasses.
Link to Portfolio Project: Checkmate