Everything that can go wrong will

So, about a week ago I got an assignment in one of my architecture classes to build a cantilever. The criteria for the cantilever were pretty strict. It had to go atleast 30 inches over the edge of the table and we could only use 1 12x12x.5 piece of MDF and one 1/4 inch dowel that was 12 inches long. Plus, to make everything more difficult, we could NOT use glue or any other adhesives of any kind! We could do anything we wanted to these materials as long as they were cantilevers. This was assigned Wednesday March 21, and the project was due Monday March 26th. Usually, we get a few weeks so our projects can be critiqued by our TA's and so that way they can be much better. But there was no time for critique this time around. I actually had a lot of problems building this. Physics was not my favorite class in high school, and since I haven't had that class in about 3 years or so, I couldn't really remember much. Luckily, I have a boyfriend who knows things about physics. I had a tough time coming up with ideas for this project because I didn't know what was going to work and what wasn't.
But anyways, as soon as I got my project figured out, I had to figure out how to build it. For the first challenge I had to figure out how to cut the MDF into 1/8th inch thick pieces. Me and Alex went to Lowes and then Home Depot to see if they could cut my wood for me, but the blades that they had for cutting wood were 1/8th inch thick, so it wouldn't work to well. We then ventured over to the tool section of Home Depot where we found a miter box and a miter saw. The only problem with that was that the miter box was only 3 inches wide and I needed it to be at least 12 inches. Luckily I had an extra piece of MDF so I could use that to make it wider. Unfortunately, the miter box was glued together. So we had to steam it so the glue would melt and we could then expand it. After that we reassembled the box and waited for the glue to dry. Once everything was set, we then proceeded to cut my 1/8th inch strips of MDF, not an easy task. We started cutting at about 4:30 or so, and didn't finish until about 10 pm. We did take a few breaks, but still it was a very long process. This was our Saturday.

On Sunday, I had to drill holes into my strips of MDF. The holes had to be 1/4th inch in diameter so we could insert pieces of dowel into them. Alex had wanted to get a new drill for a long time, so we went to Sears and got him one and a set of drill bits. Unfortunately, none of the drill bits were big enough, so we had to go back and get some bigger ones. Drilling the holes was quite a process too. The pieces had to be clamped together with binder clips, and then we started drilling smaller holes and they progressively got bigger. This took a couple of hours to do, but not as long as it took to cut the wood the other night. As soon as we were done with that, Alex had to go to work, so I took my project back to my place and cut the dowel into pieces so that it would fit into the holes that we drilled.
This is my finished product. It is not one of the most sturdy pieces of construction in the world, it kept flopping over to one side unless it rested on the edge of the table. Sorry for such a long post. But it was a very long process. My next assignment is to build a column, hopefully that shouldn't be too difficult, but I'm not going to count on it. Anyways, have a wonderful day everyone!