Read these two articles for you to get some premise of this project

All about the Mould for QingmingGuo

Design Ethnography: Reinvention the QingmingGuo mould

Now that I have made a genealogy poster around my grandmother, written an essay from the position of the tool, made two models of the tool, a number of illustrative metaphors are now presented to me. With the function of the tool removed it can be easily understood as a metaphor for something else.
Thinking about the tool we did in wood shop and plastic lab, the tool we simplified it and changed its material, but it still has the function and I gained much more feeling about it. The redesign of the tool is a new experience to me. In the beginning, the tool in my family reflected the custom in that small village, it is related to the location; to the people who living there and using it; to the climate, weather and also the heritage. When I made it in the other side of the earth, it brings the culture from my hometown. When I explain the tool to my friends, I explain some tradition of my family.

The process of making plastic model of the QingmingGuo mould is interesting to me. Before that I never know so many ways of making a plastic model. This plastic lab provideds me several different approaches of making my tools. I used two ways of them. One is heating plastic sheet and using the wood tool as a mould, then letting the plastic
sheet transformate to the cover of the wood mould. I needed to make the upper cover and the bottem cover and then glued them together. Another way is using chemical reaction. For doing this, I need a shaped plastic sheet as container of chemicals.
In the end, I got five tool models from woodshop and plastic lab, there are two wood model; one model with plastic sheet; one foam model made by chemical reaction; the last one is a extra part of foam model, but it kept the shape of the mould perfectly, so I left it as the fifth mould.