Success!

Jon and I did some work last Friday to attach the backpack frame to the cross and I feel we were quite successful. All the measuring and drilling went well and there was very little second guessing. There were problems with the front when we attached the individual panels though I think these are pretty cosmetic and can be fixed with manipulation of the overall design of the project. There is still painting to be done and I guess we'll find out then what can be fixed through decoration. If anything really needs to be adjusted I hope we will have the time to do so though if something is that serious then I believe doing something cosmetic is our best option. Enough with the talk, here are the pics!

The frame in all its glory.

The inside, it looks so deceptively simple.

These next shots are details of the individual connections:

And to give an idea of how big this thing is here are some shots of Jon and I wearing it.

Despite its size the cross-backpack is pretty lightweight. The straps don't dig into the shoulders at all though I'm sure wearing it for long periods of time will change that opinion. The only real problem is keeping track of the arms. For this project and the final goal of it being "wearable art" I think it is just fine. For practical purposes I would probably make it smaller though since I'm pretty sure walking around with this thing would be more of a liability when trying to help people. Of course if you just walked into a disaster zone and dropped the thing then it probably wouldn't be so bad.