This term we had to create a model of an earthquake resistant building out of spaghetti and Blu tack. This was very challenging experiment and made us use our teamwork capability.
In our Engineering Challenge for Science this year, we hit many bumps along the way. These mishaps taught us what to change and how we could improve our next design. With our initial design, we made many mistakes such as not connecting the joints with more Blu tack and making the top too narrow. This helped us to understand what we needed to change in our new prototype and it really showed as our second design withstood the earthquake test.
Some things that we could have changed throughout the engineering challenge were; time management and not over-complicating things. These two things were a major problem within our group and it impacted our outcome of the final prototype. Although our prototype did withstand the 10 second earthquake test, we could have improved by adding more Blu Tack and having more cross-braces. This could have occurred if we didn’t spend as much time on the Stile activity as we did over think things and maybe wrote too much. We needed to manage our time better and spend more effort on the building of the prototype.
My team consisted of 4 people, and we had to spread the work out among all of us so we could be as productive as possible. I believe that each member of my team each contributed an even amount and I think we showed great teamwork. One of the members was very good at building the prototypes, one was great at the Stile activity and always made sure we had enough on there and one was amazing at drawing up our designs. I was helping with the Stile activity and the building of our prototype. This was very helpful as we ended up with a design that withstood the earthquake and that was because of our good teamwork skills.
Our challenge in Science this term was to create a earthquake resistant building while only using spaghetti and Blu Tack. This was quite a hard challenge as we were not allowed many resources, for example the spaghetti was $1 per 10 cm. Although this was the case we got to work, first starting on the Stile and completing the first couple of questions. We began to over complicate things at the start as we wrote lots for each question and made very detailed designs. When we found out the price limit we had lots to do as we thought we already had a design but in reality, it was far too expensive. After lots if thinking we sketched a quick design and begun building our first prototype. It took one period and after testing it we realised the many things we did wrong. This prototype fell in the first 3 seconds of the simulated earthquake and we were disappointed but still determined to make a better one that could withstand the earthquake test. After this mishap we got to work again, answering the Stile questions. We eventually got most of the questions done but knew that we had to get started on the second prototype. For this one we didn’t really base it of any design, we just built it off of what we knew didn’t work and what worked from our first design. As seen in the video below, the second building was done and it withstood the earthquake test. We were all very happy and we went back to finish the Stile questions. Then we finished those and got started on our e-portfolios.