Earthquake Resistance Building
Project Overview:
For our final assessment in Science this year, we were placed in groups of 2-3 and asked to design and construct an earthquake-resistant building made out of dried spaghetti and blue tack meaning if we shook it, it wasn’t going to tip or fall. This tower had to meet the following criteria:
- minimum height of 60cm
- a platform on top to hold 1 or 2 weights
- go through an earthquake simulation test for 10 seconds
- costs less than $60 to build as 1 piece of spaghetti is $1 and 1 gram of blue tack is $1
This project is very valuable because, in today’s society, earthquakes cause a lot of horrible damage and deaths across the world. Doing this project shows how we need to think of ways to earthquake-proof buildings in countries where earthquakes are very common to stop the destruction and devastation. These significant earthquakes can cause horrendous damage and can even leave thousands or millions of people homeless as the damage done to buildings may be unfixed. That’s why engineers and architects today are always trying to find new ways to improve the designs and structural integrity of buildings to maximise the safety of these buildings in case earthquakes do occur, as they are unpredictable.
Our goal for this project was to build a 60cm tall building with structural integrity strong enough to be able to withstand an earthquake, using triangles as our base shape to ensure maximum support.
Engineering Process:
The first part of the engineering process includes defining and researching. In our research, we found that the most effective way of earthquake-resistant buildings was to cross brace and double layer the spaghetti. With our supplies, cross-bracing was the easiest and most cost-effective option. Our building was specifically designed to be very square with a triangle top because this would evenly distribute the weight and damage throughout the building. Cross bracing also distributed energy from the earthquake throughout the whole building. The brace walls had minimal shaking compared to non-cross-braced walls. This shows that the cross-braced walls boosted structural integrity a great deal when compared to a structure with non-cross-braced walls.
My Thoughts:
I think our group worked extremely well together and even though we all had our roles, as some members of the group did more of the research part of this assignment than the building part it still worked as all roles are important for a group to work collaboratively.