Brief
As term four draws to a close the yr 9 students were assigned with the task of building a structure that could withstand a simulated earthquake( through a shake table). We had to follow the design brief which stated we had to build the structure out of pasta and blue-tack which had a minimum height of 60 cm and a maximum base of 30 cm x 30 cm. We had to also stay under a budget of $60, the costs for each material $1 per 10 cm of pasta and 1 gram of blue-tack. The idea of this project was to research and design architectural features in our structures, which could possibly influence the design of buildings in earthquake prone areas. During this activity we where placed in groups of 3 or 4 my group consisted of Luke Williams and Mitchell Loxton.
Our first plan of attack towards this challenge was to research how this type of project has been accomplished before and also how modern earthquake resistant buildings have been made and how are the pronounced ” earthquake proof” . Through our research we where able to find many design which we took inspiration from for our first prototype.
After doing our research it was time for us to design our first prototype. Luke and I used what we had found in our research and where able to come up with a rough idea of what we wanted our building to look like. Our first design was a very rough sketch our a side view of the building we wanted to create. This design took updates until it looked like a more up to scratch and perfect building design to survive an earthquake which is when we came up with the final design for our first prototype.
Once we had our plane made up it was time to build ad test our first prototype. Our first prototype was very successful it passed earthquake test and didn’t break at all and stay at the same height it started at which was above 60 cm. This was a very successful attempt and we didn’t need to change anything about our design, although it did have it limitations they where not severe enough to make a negative impact on the structure.
When it came time to making our second prototype we did waste some class time member of our group where not at school for other reasons. During the lesson we where very complacent since our first prototype was very successful. Although we wasted a lot of time in class we where still able to test a second prototype although this one was not very well thought out and was not able to survive the test we where still happy with our first one which was our main idea.
The roles of our group in this task were that I was responsible for building the majority, the spaghetti structure. Mitchell was away from school and did not contribute to most of the project, but when he was in class he assisted with the building. Luke main role in the group was to design and plan the buildings. Although we had our roles in the group, Luke and i worked together to complete this task. We looked over many different ideas and chose the most suitable design. Luke was good at making our designs and putting them together with our research. I was happy with the buildings i was able to accomplish and i think we worked very well as a team when we put our minds to it.