In the winter transitioning 2020 to 2021, I found myself the owner of two pairs of headphones that I used for different purposes. I was keeping them on my desk at the time, and the annoyance of constantly moving them around to gain desk space brought me to search online for a simple headphone stand to hold them. I was exasperated to find several t-shaped pieces of plastic all going for $40-60. When I realized none of those products were likely worth my money, I opened Creo and began to model my own to 3D print... but then I got bored. Still flying high off of the rush of my first-ever personal project (check out the Hoverboard,) I decided if I was going to make my own headphone stand, I might as well make it fun and learn something along the way! So I reached out to dozens of friends and family members to give me random words. Once, I had compiled them all, I sent out a form so they could vote on their favorite word, and their choice was "Cactus." And in as little as 24 hours, it was decided. My next project was to make a Cactus Headphone Stand, whatever that meant to me. This was a little intimidating because I had never had to make anything look particularly natural before, but I was determined to give it my best shot. So I sat down and started designing, and before long I had worked out a plan.

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The first problem to solve was establishing some sort of rigid frame. For this, I chose PVC pipe. It's simple, cheap, easy to make into the shape of a cactus with a couple 45-degree fittings, and sturdy enough to get the job done. Next, came the task of giving this skeleton a cactus-like body. This is where the pool noodles come into play. Far from the first thing a sculptor would reach for when trying to render a cactus, pool noodles were lightweight, slid perfectly over PVC pipe, and could be carved such that they resembled cactus-like ridges. While carving it made a huge mess, and it looked horrible in that state, I was confident that the next step would tie everything together. Once I had the general shape outlined in foam, I applied several layers of plaster of Paris, making sure to fill in any cracks and imperfections in the foam. This part was a lot of fun as I had never worked with plaster before, and I got to learn a lot about how its water content changed how it applied and cured. It took a bit of trial and error, but eventually, I had something that looked like a cactus. Albeit a colorless one, but a cactus nonetheless! Things were looking promising! With wind in my sails, I sanded it down and put on my first coat of green paint. I had also never really painted anything to look particularly natural so with the help of a few good YouTube tutorials, I began layering in lighter greens. Once I got it to a point I was happy with, I looked down at the old beaten-up paintbrush I had found in my garage, cut off its course bristles, and used them as spines all around the piece. All that was left to do was put it in a pot with some rock so it wouldn't fall over, and Jorge was done! Oh yeah, and I named him Jorge after my middle-school science teacher's cactus. He's unnecessarily large and over the top, but he gets the job done and I had an absolute blast making him!