Prototype of chicken run roof

     For our Maker Faire project, we decided to prototype a roof for our chicken coop, the floor of which got really mucky, disgusting, smelly, unpleasant, and generally awful. And then, we spent 3-4 hours shoveling and carrying the lumpy, smelly, watery upper layer and the squishy (but still miasmic) lower layer in a successful attempt to clean the run. The roof we designed had an accordion folding mechanism which enables it to close up when the sun was out and cover the chicken run while it is raining.

     The most noticeable differences between using the cardboard and the aesthetically stunning plastic roof were the lids having edges and that we had to drill holes in the plastic lids. Aside from that, it still follows the formula of 1. Make holes midway on the flat things ➙ 2. Duct tape it together ➙ 3. Insert strings ➙ 4. Tie (hex) nuts on string.

One of our 4 signs

  Aside from drill(IlIlIlIlI) safety, we didn’t think we learned much else from this. However, we have to put something here, so we now can say that we learned how to meet requirements that didn’t happen. In the future, we plan to scale up into a roof that fits®️. If you tried to do this, try making the full chicken run roof, as we spent about 3 out of 7 periods brainstorming and still finished. We also made 4 advertisements in full colored sharpie, on cardboard, 3 of them about the booth. However, the booth next to us got about 3 times more customers (admittedly, they were offering FREE CAKE!).Then again, they stood in front of our booth with nothing to do, so we did benefit from the CAKE. Therefore, we can conclude that advertising doesn’t work and that if you want visitors, OFFER (free) FOOD.

     The accordion folding chicken run roof is made of 100% reused materials from The Bin of Creative Genius. (technically, to do this at home, you’ll need 1 roll of duct tape ($5-13), nuts (the cheapest I could find was $0.38) and string (<$10). Cardboard is basically free, and lids, lids are strangely priced and so we don’t have a proper price for this.) However, a final draft of the chicken roof will be made from higher quality materials and will cost money. Our inspiration did not come from the internet, but it did come from the actual chicken coop. The muck and sludge in the chicken coop is caused by rain, so we wanted to create an alternative to the tarp. The prototype that we created is compact and holds its shape.