The Elementary School my kids attended was in the process of creating a nature center. One day they asked me if I might be interested in building an arbor – some sort of structure to put over their outdoor learning center.
Through brainstorming I came up with the idea of designing a large butterfly that would represent different areas of learning such as math, art, nature and science.
Math:
We have geometry creating these angles – 45 degrees, 90 degrees and even 22.5 degrees.
Art:
The butterfly is an abstract design which is 29 ½ feet wide. The antenna was built out of stainless steel that is just the right thickness. In the wind, we can see the antenna move and dance.
Nature:
Structure is made of cedar and steel. The body part is welded steel 2” x 4” and we allowed it to rust before we put a clear sealer on it.
Science:
I paid attention to the direction of the sun at different times of the day. If you look, you’ll see that each wing has flaps that go in opposing directions. My goal was to make sure that all of the tables would have some sort of shade during the day. One day I installed 4 posts to hold the arbor. I have a laser that will shoot a line anywhere I want. I put that laser so that it would cut a line at an angle across the tops of those poles. I then marked the poles. I returned the following day with my saw and cut the tops of the poles at the angles. We built this arbor on the angled poles so that it would project the idea that the butterfly was tilted up and about to take off in flight.
