The spaghetti tower project was an extremely enjoyable and fascinating way to end the year off. This project allowed for creative and interesting thinking and designing to produce a tower constructed out of spaghetti and blu-tack that can withstand an earthquake, while on a budget of $60 (1 spaghetti stick is a dollar and 1 gram of blu-tack is a dollar).

Our team consisted of Ridley, Amelia, Zoey and myself. At the beginning of this project, we were assigned roles to benefit our group and make sure we were on track. The Project Manager was assigned to Zoey, she made sure everyone was on track. Amelia was assigned Equipment Manager and made sure all the materials were available and we all cleaned up after every lesson. Ridley was the Speaker and his responsibility was to inform the teacher, students and outside experts for advice. I was the Reporter, I tracked our group’s progression and made sure we were ready for the deadline.

Timeline of the construction of our tower:

Footage of the tower experiencing an earthquake:

Connects ideas and concepts of the project to the real world:

The spaghetti tower project had much more meaning behind it, rather than constructing a tower made out of spaghetti with your mates.

This project provided students with a lens into real-world architecture and engineering. Not only did students have to design and construct a tower out of spaghetti and blu-tack that can withstand an earthquake, but with a budget of $60. 1 spaghetti stick is $1, and 1 gram of blu-tack is $1.

These circumstances, allowed students to really conserve their resources and budget which allowed for much more creative and interesting structures to be constructed.

Explanation of the outcomes and of proposed changes to improve outcomes:

Our group was first curious about the effectiveness of cross-bracing. So we constructed two mini towers (both 10cm tall) one was practically a cube, while the other had cross bracing implemented. Our group was not surprised to find that the “cube” fell within seconds while the cross-bracing structure didn’t even move.

While prototyping the triangular base with cross-bracing, our group realised its monstrous effectiveness. The result of this led our group to alter our whole design to match the triangular base one.

Throughout the construction of the triangular-based building, we experienced minimal to no problems (construction and testing-wise) which really propelled our group ahead of schedule and provided our group with the precious gift of time.