I Have a Glowing Purple Snake

December 20, 2010 by Taylor Studios in Professional & Industry Tips

The other day I was walking through the shop and asked Marc, our Model Shop Lead, what he was doing. He said he was testing a new clear outdoor casting material. We needed to make sure this UV Stable plastic was very durable. We have a unique project to create outdoor signs for the visually impaired. These signs will have Braille and other tactile objects. The material we cast these panels in must be durable enough that someone cannot pick off the Braille.

This clear material can be tinted with any color making it either translucent or opaque. I flippantly said, “I like purple.” Shortly thereafter I received a women’s restroom sign in a rich purple hue.

Since they had extra testing material they decided to also cast a snake. Marc cast the snake in purple and, while he was cleaning it up during his break, Tony saw it and told Marc he ought to make it glow. Since we have stuff lying around like LEDs, they were able to backlight the snake. I now have a very cool glowing purple snake in my office!

This material will work great for our Gulf Island project. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan destroyed several of the wayside signs in the Florida District of Gulf Island National Seashore. The 11 wayside panels we’re constructing will help to replace many of these now absent signs. The National Park Service contracted us to create tactile panels with various models juxtaposed with Braille. These tactile models interpret the distinguishing features of the many plant and animals of the Gulf- from the rustling creatures of the forest floor such as the five-lined skink and the slimy salamander, to the First Federal Tree farm of Live Oaks used to build wooden ship hulls.

We are pretty fortunate to have work that is also entertaining. I imagine we have some of the most interesting conversations of any work place. This morning when I was walking through the shop one conversation was about animal tracks. We knew we had animal track molds from past projects, we just were not sure if they were of a mole. In our stand up meeting this morning, we were talking about early hominids and whether they help achieve the central theme of a particular museum. This is just a normal day’s work.