This year for Christmas, there is a new item that is bound to find its way onto your list. No, it’s not a new iPhone 6 or Xbox One. The Robotics team will be your Santa this year as they have come out with the stocking stuffer of the century. Their cutting edge Christmas ornaments are the center of the math commons gossip mill lately. Word on the street is that there will be multiple ornaments for sale, including the student and faculty voted first place ornament from Spencer Gautreaux ’17. Among the other ornament creators are Anirudh Kantareddy ’18, Jack Schwab ’17, and Gregory Saini ’16. Produced by Jesuits own 3-D printer, these trinkets are sure to be a hit.
Mr. Couvillon, faculty moderator of Robotics, jumped at the opportunity to converse about the ornaments, and had nothing but good things to say about this year’s batch. He explained that the students who had designed ornaments within the time constraint had their designs submitted and placed in the administration area to be voted on. Time passed, and the ballots were sent in. The winning ornament came from Spencer Gautreaux. His design features a three-dimensional perspective view of the front of the Athletics tower. The winner used a combination of computer programming and robotics devices to create his masterpiece.
After talking to Mr. Couvillon about the ornaments, he explained the difficulty of designing a product: “If you create something, you have an idea of all of the possibilities, but as a consumer you simply look at it and wonder if you will buy it.”
Color scheme seemed to be a difficult topic as well, Mr. Couvillon explained that last year, to his surprise, clear was the best selling color. This tricky consumer statistic is why they have the vote to decide these such things in order to determine the production of each ornament.
When asked about where his idea for the ornament came from, Spencer responded with, “I knew that i wanted to include the school in some way into my ornament. The athletic building was the most iconic perspective i could think of.”
Spencer was excited about the opportunity to explain the tools used to create the beautiful work of art. “I designed a three dimensional model in SolidWorks [a 3D Design software]. We then decided, through trials on many different materials, to cut the ornaments on the laser cutter out of two pieces of acrylic with a mirrored film. The back piece is just a flat oval. On top of this piece is glued a cut out of the school with certain features, such as windows, etched into it.”
When asked if he will be hanging his ornament this year, Gautreaux quickly replied, “Of course!” Spencer’s ornament and others will be available in the Terry Center during the Christmas Bazaar on Saturday, December 6th at Jesuit.
