This winter before school closed for the break we had another exhibition. This exhibition was the best exhibition for me by far. This year the BIG idea for the exhibition was World War 1. Our topic for World War 1 was the Trenches the trick was we had to represent Canadian identity. This year the scale that everyone went to is HUGE. In in our group we had 2 trenches, no man’s land and even a mobile tank that actually drives and is powered by a 6.5hp pressure washer engine.

Here is what it was like to walk through our group.

You walk into the trench, Michael is there to greet. We have a
black/grey tarp or carpet on the floor with dirt on top of it. One
side is the boxes of trench and the other is the wall with a backdrop
of a trench hung up. Along side the trenches there will be dead rats,
old boots, guns, grenades, artillery shells and ladders… The first
door will be opened, we will have have “barbed wire” around it and a
fake fence. Out side there will be a tent set up covering the area in
which a “tank” will be patrolling around. The tent will be enclosed by
2 tarps and 1 backdrop. After taking a look, the group will venture
out into mans land, here we will continue the dirt covered floors and
the backside of two trenches. For the wall of the gym we will have a
simple backdrop and for the opposite side a more complex backdrop. On
the floor we will have recruitment some extra bodies who will play
dead or injured in the field, during walking through no mans land nash
will have stretcher and by trying to save all these people taking them
back into the trench and into the medical tent. When you walk into the
second trench, there will be a block that is kind of a table and a
bench where 2 soldiers will be sitting. On the table there will be a
pack of cigars and cigarettes, diaries, letters, deck of cards…etc.
One side will be the trench wall and on the other will be a “rock
wall” with Canadian carvings. This continues until you reach the
medical tent which is all white with a red cross. Inside there will be
a “bed” medical equipment, crutches and Nash will be treating the same
patient that he brought in from no mans land.

 
As you may be wondering how we made trenches inside the gym Marley was able to bring in a bunch of large moving boxes to paint in a dark brown/mud color like what a trench would look like. The time we spent painting boxes and detailing them you could of probably have gone for a road trip and come back 2 weeks later and they would not be done.

The tank on the other hand was even harder to deal with as we had to cut out every piece and fit them together and make sure that the cardboard would stay together and not fall apart from its own weight. After putting all the cardboard together and reinforcing the cardboard so much with tuck tape you can hit it with a sledge hammer and it won’t break. Just kidding I can’t believe that the cardboard stayed together the whole time because I totally thought it would break half way through the night. Then after we where done with the cardboard we painted it green.

The tank was actually my go kart that I made when I was 8 years old. I welded the frame, machined the axle and did the steering ect. To make the thing go fast I also added a torque converter and put big sprocket on the axle. The fastest I have ever made the go kart go in a straight line is 80km on the medium size sprocket.