The Earthquake Resistant Structure Project was a project completed in Year 9 in relation to Earth and Space Science with Earthquakes and seismic waves. The project was completed in groups of 2 or 3 and required the individuals to use collaboration, research, and engineering skills to create a structure of spaghetti and blue tack that fit the required standards set by the teacher. Some of these requirements included height (60cm), base width (30cm x 30cm), and cost of structure (1 spaghetti costing $1 and 1g of blue tack costing $1, with a budget of $60). Then be put through a 10 second test simulating an earthquake.

The Earthquake Resistant Structure included certain area’s and processes that we needed to utilize in order to push forward and finish the project, with one of these being the engineering process. With the engineering process having 7 aspects, these being, ask, research, imagine, plan, create, test, and improve I feel that this project forced us to effectively use all of these aspects, even if it was only for a short amount of time. With majority of the project being heavily based on research, plan, create, I think that the amount of research needed inside the project was unnecessary, if we would have been able to shorten the amount of research and include more imagining and testing it would have heavily helped out our group as we had only one plan and had to stick to it as much as possible. With this change it would have allowed us to have more freedom in changing up our design with more time to spare as well as more imagination and planning. With this I would have liked a factor of no budget, this is because it ended up destroying our original plan into having to change it into something that was more affordable but sacrificing our imagination.

With my group being a group of 3 including myself, Rohan Singh, and Aun Mohammad, we had allocated each other roles in depiction of what we felt was each of our strengths. We allocated me as the project manager, Aun as the reporter, and Rohan as the equipment manager. With each of us having strengths that allowed us to excel in these positions, such as my designing, Aun’s organization, and Rohan’s financing and number skills. Together I think that we were an effective trio and each of us played our part in contributing to the final product of our structure.

In the end I think that this project was a great experience for us, as it allowed us to try new things such as the engineering process. The combination of new skills as well as old skills such as collaboration came together to create a interesting atmosphere of the couple of weeks that it was done out. Personally I really enjoyed the fact that it was a somewhat breakoff from the normal cycle of test, learn, test, and instead have a different aspect of a project.