Our Project was to design and create a structure that would withhold a stimulated Earthquake for 15 seconds in S and P wave form. We could only use $60 worth of blue tack and spaghetti to create this structure. I was in a group with Eliza, Jayden and Marwan. As a group, our Goal was for the tower to survive the 15 seconds with little to no damage at all.
It needed to be Earthquake proof and have a minimum height of 60cm and a 30 X 30cm base.
Our design –
Our original design consisted of lots of cross bracing, this was because after we researched separately, we all came to the conclusion that this is a great way to keep a building together and stable during an earthquake. We also had lots of triangles together as they would counteract on each other with tension and wouldn’t crumble compared to a square. We also found out that doubling up on the spaghetti could help the building become more stable. Overall, I feel that our design is gong to withstand the tests with no damage.
We had our own assigned tasks like assembling, creating the triangles, sorting out the money and testing.
Costs –
Blue tack: $18 -18g
Spaghetti: $42 – 42 sticks
Total: $60
This project relates to the real world as the buildings are becoming more necessary, for example, in Japan the buildings would have to be very strong as its regular for them to get earthquakes.
To improve our model, we decided that the bottom level needed more support as it was withstanding too much weight. To do this, we added smaller/ broken bits of pasta to each corner to make it more stable. this helped so the spaghetti doesn’t snap when we are testing it. We also added a few more cross braces to the tower so it was withholding the weight of the tower and wouldn’t snap.
Changes I would make in the future would be to calculate the spaghetti we needed a little bit better as we could have used more if we had some. Otherwise, I feel that our tower was quite good.
