SAM AQUILLANO - INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER

Iron Man Costume.

That's me. This Halloween I decided I would pull a Tony Stark and build my very own Mark III. It all started when I was chatting with Karalynn online, we started talking about Iron Man (my new favorite movie, sorry Fifth Element...), then we got onto the subject of hair dyeing (I had a weird tendency to dye my hair different colors in college: blue, red, green, red and green spots, you name it). She wanted to see a pic. While digging through some hard copies of photos from college I came across a photo from freshmen year... 

That year all the art and design majors had to take foundation classes including 3D design. My professor was Steve Loar, the bristol board master. He proceeded to put my class through Jedi x-acto blade training. We had to build a paper costume and I made a knight (check out that sword!!!). Side-note: that costume was featured in that quarter's design show in the RIT art building, I even made a corrugated-cardboard version of me to wear it.

Anyway, I hadn't planned on dressing up this year, but eventually Karalynn asked me what I was going to be for Halloween, and it hit me. Iron Man. In a rush I knew exactly how I was going to do it. I documented the entire process with the slideshow below. (Oh... note the mustache, that was for a different costume, I went to a party as my Dad, Sam Sr., more on that later.)

I began by sketching the patterns... 

Sneak Peek 2.

Yes... This. Is. Happening.

Sneak Peek.

Crushtoberfest.

We’re halfway through Crushtoberfest. What’s Crushtoberfest? It’s sort of hard to explain. What do you get when you put together a group of designers with too much creativity, too much time on their hands and too many resources at their disposal? Crushtoberfest, that’s what. I wish I could point to one person or event that spurred this on but I can’t. Like any great idea it grew organically and collaboratively. Have I built it up enough yet?

I think it stared one day at break (we have afternoon break, everyone goes to the cafeteria together at 3pm, it’s spectacular). No, it started with my pal Shawn. He recently started here and brought with him a love for strong-man competitions (it all comes together in the end, trust me). Him and his brother-in-law had started grip-strength training on these hand grippers manufactured by the aptly named: Captains of Crush. It’s basically two handles with a spring between that you try to close by gripping or ‘crushing’ it. There’s a whole set starting at Guide (60 lbs. of force to close) and going all the way to No. 4 (365 lbs. to close, impossible). This video will help explain things. Shawn brought one in to show us.

The Carpool.

 

The carpool in on. Cory, Nate and I have been taking turns driving to Bose the last few weeks and it's working out great. That's Nate driving, above. We have a shared Google Calendar schedule and everything (yes, everything I do must have a technological or web element). It has been less disruptive to my "schedule" than I thought. They are early risers which has made running in the morning tricky: 10 mile runs at 5:30am are interesting... It's all worth it.

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I've actually rediscovered the beauty of the back seat, and found it fun to stare at people on the MassPike, until they look over, confused.