We were given the challenge of researching and creating an earthquake-resistant tower out of spaghetti and blue-tack this term utilizing our communication and teamwork abilities. The requirements for this work were having a foundation that was at least 30 cm by 30 cm and 60 cm tall, withstanding a primary and secondary wave on a shake table, having a flat platform on top that was at least 5 cm by 5 cm in size, and staying within a $60 budget. Our team’s ability to work together and communicate was the emphasis of this endeavor. Although there were some difficulties along the road, we managed to improve our productivity as well as our research and application skills.
Reflection
The engineering process was challenging, but from the start of the project to the end there were visible changes in how we solved problems and how we worked.
After defining the problem, we researched and brainstormed what different features that we could implement to make our tower more sturdy. We created different designs and decided on one that we thought was going to work the best, based off the design sprint. Although our original model didn’t meet all the requirements, it gave us new ideas and improvements for our next structure. Our original tower was the base of our tower, but we added cross braces and posts to provide more support. During the building stage, we used a paper blueprint to make it easier.
After building all three faces we attached them together and adjusted the blue-tack and spaghetti. After, we realised that we didn’t have a top platform with a surface area of 5cm by 5cm, but we still had room in the budget to add one.
We tested our project and made notes about what could we do better next time. Overall our design was great because it didn’t fall apart during the testing or building stages.
Communication and Teamwork
Our team worked really well together throughout this process because we separated roles but still worked together on most aspects of the task. We could have done a better job of doing the duties and explaining the various responsibilities of the various roles. I was in charge of the tower’s construction and concept suggestions. This is a highly helpful job since I could give ideas for the structure to make it more sturdy during our second build instead of us wrecking our tower and starting from scratch as we did before when things didn’t work. Joseph was in charge of gathering supplies and ensuring that the spending limit was not exceeded. Joseph also assisted in constructing the towers and kept us within our budget by reminding us how much material we could use for each part. In addition to assisting with construction, Cerys worked on gathering information, posing inquiries, and investigating other structures that we may use if others proved ineffective. Everyone was placed in a capacity that fit their abilities and personality because we didn’t purposefully assign these roles, therefore it worked out fairly nicely.
