Summary of Project-

Earthquakes are a natural occurrence all across the world. They are known for their devastation and damage caused on a major scale. Due to this, we were provided with the Year 9 Engineering Project. The project would teach us about the requirements of a building to withstand these earthquakes and reduce damage. In groups of 4, we were required to create a building made of only spaghetti and blutack, and put this to the test through an earthquake simulator, to see what the design and creation can withstand. We had to approach the task like engineers, so we were provided with the engineering process to assist us with this. Our building had some requirements, being a minimum of 60cm tall, and a maximum of 30 x 30 cm base. A stick of spaghetti and a gram of blutack both cost $1, and we had a budget of $60 for our creation. The project provided us with many different skills including collaboration, focus, and many more. It also required some capabilities including effective communication, resilience and multiple others.

Engineering Process-

The engineering process assisted us to follow a schedule in order to complete our task. It consisted of define, brainstorm, research, design, create, and test and evaluate. This began with a period-long design sprint, to test our prior knowledge of construction and engineering, creating a very time-limited building. This led to our failure and suggested we research how to tackle the issues we previously faced. Through the information we gathered, we designed a new construction, to then form a prototype. Following this, we had to test and vary our design multiple times in order to be the most stable and resistant. Testing our design allowed us to pinpoint the issues within our building, and provide us with solutions in order to prevent this occurrence in the future. The final test would show us how resistant our building is, and would show us whether we made enough changes to our design. Our design lasted both types of waves without breaking and showed both our strengths and weaknesses, with one stick of spaghetti breaking. The engineering process was an extremely useful process in order to provide us with success in our task. It allowed us to finalise our project to a very successful standard.

Requirements of Building:

• 1 Stick of Spaghetti – $1
• 1g of Blutack – $1
• $60 budget in total
• 60cm minimum height
• 30 x 30 cm maximum base size

Our Many Designs:

Our First Design, Second Design, And Final Design.

All of these designs were altered from testing to make them more resistant, providing the final design.

Overall, the project was pretty successful in the process and provided us with the necessary skills for future similar tasks to this.