This term we were given a project in science involving spaghetti and blue-tack. The task was to design and construct a building made out of spaghetti and the goal was for it to be earthquake proof, meaning if we shook it, it wasn’t going to tip or fall.
To make the building, we had to start out by doing a few Stile questions which made us ensure that we had a building plan and helped us to understand what factors contribute to a building being earthquake-proof. Since my partner and I were not there for a few previous lessons, we were behind and had to use our time more effectively so we could catch up to everyone else. We answered the questions on Stile easily and then had to start designing what our building was going to look like. When doing research, we found that having a sturdy base was essential for a building to be earthquake proof, so when building we made the bottom quite wide as we thought it would help the whole structure stay up. On our first attempt at building it was quite hard as it was tricky to attach the spaghetti to the blue-tack as sometimes it would snap when we tried to add height to our building. Another problem we had was the structure kept leaning to one side instead of staying centre. This is because we didn’t have any support around the sides to keep it from tipping. When testing if the building was earthquake proof, it did not fall over but it did tip a little bit and wasn’t earthquake proof. We noticed these flaws and used it to our advantage.
On our second trial of building we designed it to be not so wide and we added crosses to the side the equal weight so that the structure would stay centre and not tip. Building this second one took a lot less time as it was easier because the spaghetti was very stable and centre. Adding the changes to our tower really helped the sturdiness of it and even made it taller than the first prototype. We then put it on the “earthquake simulator” and it did very well- did not tip or fall over. Overall we learned heaps about how construction workers use different strategies to make buildings earthquake proof and next time, I would try be more organised and have more of a structured plan before starting.