Aloha! On this bright and beautiful day we’ll be covering something that I’ve been doing for a few years called Blue Sky! You can check out my winter exhibition I did in the winter here or last summer’s exhibition here. For this summer’s exhibition we had to choose a problem that impacted either babies, toddlers, pets, seniors, or Tweens. We had to turn this problem into an inquiry question beginning with “How might we…” At first it was very hard to find a problem and I was stuck. I knew that I wanted my blue sky to be centred around pets because my mom is a vet and I love animals a lot. I also wanted to play with my cat, Tripod. With that in mind, I went to my mom and asked her about a problem that she has with cats. She explained that there are a lot of cats that aren’t as active as they should be and that maybe I could create a cat playhouse that would help with that issue. She suggested an idea where the cat’s food or treats would drop from one side and the cat would have to run to that side to retrieve it. It would then drop another from the other side and the cat would need to run to the other side to eat it. I did a lot of research about cats and what diseases they can have by being overweight such as But as I explained in my tPOL post, started on the actual building of this was very difficult for me. So then one day my mom had a meeting with a behaviouralist who talked all about cat’s behaviour and toys people can buy where the cat would need to work for their food.
What I thought of doing was making cost-effective ways for people to help their cat get more exercise at home. Home, being a smaller living space such as an apartment, condo, townhouse, etc. Where the cat won’t have enough roaming space. I began by researching toys that I could bring into the cat playhouse, like this toilet paper roll toy, or this cardboard mouse. I also brought in some toys made of pipe cleaners and feathers. I used a baby’s crib as the structure of the playhouse and it worked really well because it has some transparent walls. Here’s a picture of my cat playing in the experimental crib:
I just so happened to make a video of Tripod playing with the toys which I had on next to my poster board. Here it is!
At the moment I’m unable to insert my video.
This project was a great learning experience and I loved how it turned out. See you in the next post!