Introduction
Our original challenge for this task was to build a 60cm structure that could withstand an earthquake using just spaghetti and blue tack. We also had a limited budget of $60 with 10cm of spaghetti costing $1 and 1 gram of blue tack costing $1. To test this, we would recreate an earthquake by putting our structure on a wooden board and that board on a wobbly table. This would simulate our earthquake that we would wobble for 10 seconds per group. The intended outcome of this task it to make our building safely continue standing even after our simulated earthquake and the way we could make this task successful is making sure we do lots of research of different shapes and structures that are sturdy and are normally used by professional architects to make earthquake-safe buildings.
Research
While we were completing the research section of this task team member 1 was really engaged and enjoyed thoroughly researching as much as she could in order to find the best designs. Her main task was to find the best shapes and techniques for our actual structure while the rest of us were all engaged in smaller tasks like gathering data, other engineering designs and investigating how earthquakes work. This worked really well because we all felt like we had a good idea of what did or didn’t work in a building- we got the research done faster and more efficiently than if just one of us had completed all the work.
Some of the research we came up with included cross bracing, diagonal bracing, moment resisting frames, domes, triangles and more. These specific shapes gave us a broader idea of what type of design we were leaning to and how gravity affects the structural integrity of buildings. This made the design process easier which really helped us overall.
Design
For our design, we found drawing life sized designs on the whiteboard very helpful to be able to vision what we actually wanted to create. For this section, I feel as though team member 2 shone through and was very skillful in helping the whole group calculate costs and measurements. She was able to easily do the maths for the conversion between grams/ cm to dollars which was very helpful and made things move on much quicker for the whole team.
We sketched multiple designs using all different shapes and sizes but for all of them we always used bracing since our research suggested this would be the most successful idea. The only problem with this was that having cross bracing, which is very sturdy, would also be extremely expensive and every time we did a new design we seemed to keep blowing our budget. In order to fix this without completely changing the structure of this building, we landed on the idea of diagonal bracing since this is cheaper but also just as effective.
Another feature we wanted in our design is to have a very light top section that could slightly sway because this would take the pressure off the base of our building and balance the pull created by the wobbly table. This would insure that the base it strong and stable so that it would not crumble or fall over. This ended up really helping us in our end prototype and making this challenge successful.
Constructing our first prototype
After we had completed our research and design portions of this challenge we were finally ready to construct our building. We knew this would take more than one go but we started none the less. We got our bag of spaghetti, blue tack and board and we began. We started with the base, making sure it was stuck to the board firmly and then worked our way up. All four of us were working on this together and eventually we realized that this was not working well. Every few minutes while someone was reaching over the top of the other, a piece was spaghetti would snap and we would loose another couple of dollars which we couldn’t afford. Even so, we were able to half complete the build but it was looking very unbalanced and could barely stand up on it’s own let alone during an earthquake.
After thinking about why this may be, we decided to split up the jobs and let only two people work on the structure at a time. So, myself at team member 2 were assigned to work on the building of this tower while team member 3 would hand out the limited blue tack evenly and tell us when something on the building looked off. I feel as though by having team member 3, who is a good communicator, there we were much more organized and completed the tower much more successfully this time. After much more easily completing the building, it could easily stand up by itself and felt so much more secure.
Testing Our Prototype
As you can see in the video our building was able to survive the simulated earthquake for 10 seconds without having any major damage done to it. The base was extremely secure and didn’t budge at all while the top end of the tower was able to sway and was very light meaning that the entire building itself was able to stay balanced and secure. Overall, we were very happy with how this turned out and that all our research success
Analyzing and Improving
Ultimately, our first prototype succeeded this challenge but there is always room to improve. One thing that we noticed after taking a look at our structure after our attempt was that some of the blue tack had started pulling away from the spaghetti and that some of the pieces of spaghetti were starting to bend slightly. This meant that although our structure did work the first time, in the long term, it would not be sustainable and would probably fall apart. To fix this, our group was thinking that we would not play/ warm up the blue tack to much so that it was still hard and less sticking for it to then show less wear and tear.
Some things we were very happy with and that we will keep for our next design included the long piece of spaghetti swaying at the top and the durable, strong base. These features, in my opinion, were the reason as to why our our structure was able to stay so strong during the simulated earthquake and without these features, our building could have crumbled or snapped.
Re-designing
As our task progressed and everyone had made and tested their first prototype some criteria in this challenge were changed in order to make more of the buildings successful. These included the building only having to be a minimum of 25cm tall and the structure has to have a level at the top to be able to hold a lego character of about 5 grams worth. Although these were new guidelines, all other criteria was the same and the outcome and research would stay similar to the original.
Keeping the new criteria in mind as well as the fact that our original design worked very well we decided that for our second prototype we would keep the structure itself the very same but shorten the long piece of spaghetti by 18cm and put a 20cm by 20cm piece of paper on top so that the building would fit the criteria better. We again used the whiteboard to draw our design and calculate the costs so with the help of team member 2 so that the building portion would be easier.
Building our second prototype
When building our second prototype, we used the same technique as before playing to each team members strengths. Team member 2 and I would assemble while team member 3 would communicate and team member 4 would hand out blue tack and make sure we were not going to run out of materials and have to start again. This worked very well again and we efficiently made the new design without crossing any problems.
Testing our Second Prototype
As you can see, our structure once again withstood the simulated earthquake thanks to the research and teamwork put in. This time, however, the top piece of spaghetti did not sway as much which I think makes our design much more realistic and practical. As well as afterwards, looking closely, there was less wear from the building as there was less blue tack pulling away and spaghetti bending even with the extra 5 grams weight because we were more careful as to where and how we put the blue tack on.
Reflection
Overall, I think that our team worked in an affective and engaging way so that everyone had a specific job. Team member 1 really helped us with her extensive research which ultimately made our structure so much more secure, team member 2 was really good at carefully designing and calculating which made the building process so much easier, I was trying to carefully build the structure without snapping or breaking anything necessary to avoid costing us more money and team member 3 was always communicating especially while we were building which secured the outcome and avoided any unnecessary restarting or time wasting. Ultimately, I have personally learnt lots about the process of creating and innovating structures to withstand an earthquake thanks to teamwork, patience and communication.