Milk Jug Igloo

Of all the crazy projects I have pursued, this one is by far the most interesting. I am a part of the Y-club at my high school, and we travel to Louisville, KY for the Kentucky United Nation Assembly (KUNA). For this, we are assigned a country to represent with a cultural display. Last year, we chose Greenland, an icy wasteland where humanity is scarce. That being said, we weren't really sure how to go about making an interesting display that both portrays the frozen country and captures the viewer's attention. Finally, we came to the conclusion that making an igloo would be amazing.

^Yes, that's me casually nestled in the enclosure of our "Milk jug Igloo." The resources were very simple, but required superfluous amounts of each. Using literally 400+ milk jugs and tons of hot glue sticks (I mean TONS).
To start, we laid out a big piece of cardboard. Then, we drew a big circle in order to evenly direct the placement of the jugs. Finally, we were ready to start constructing. The first layer of milk jugs went down, top facing inwards. As the jugs are built up, they should be slightly glued a little closer to the middle each time a new layer is added if that makes sense. Refer to the picture below: It's hard to see clearly, but the structure is already starting to slant inward, which is good!

 

Once it begins to take shape and you get used to the pattern, it's a pretty simple process. Very time and supply consuming, it's best to go about doing this with a group...although I'm not sure why someone would want to randomly make a milk jug igloo solo...

When all is said and done, the finished product is magnificent!

 

Just a word of advice--If you plan on transporting your igloo a decent distance, keep in mind a few factors:

1.)    The size of your structure and means of transportation (A trailer would be the most sufficient, that’s what we used. Don’t make the igloo too big to fit!)

2.)    Temperature…if the weather is very cold, the hot clue will detach from the milk jugs, causing the whole thing to unfortunately fall apart

 

How do I know this? Simple: Experience. Our group made both of these mistakes, resulting in the messy heap of sadness you see below.

 

 

 

We made the igloo too big to start with, so we had to cut it in half in order to transport it to Louisville. As if that didn’t make it unstable enough, this was all taking place in March. The winter snow and frigid weather hit the structure hard, causing all the glue to detach, ending in a collapsed project. Luckily, our group persevered, worked together, and reconstructed the entire thing in less than four hours. Although it didn’t exactly look like the very first picture anymore(note the gaping hole in the top), it was still visually acceptable. We ended up placing in the top three for "Best Cultural Display," which was an outstanding achievement for us!