For our last Science assessment for Year 9, we took a new method to learning. Rather than the traditional test, we took onto doing a collaborative project. In this assessment, we designed, prototyped, and built a model of an earthquake-proof building. However, we were limited by our choice of materials (spaghetti and blue tack) and our budget, which was 60 hypothetical dollars, having to pay for our materials using our assessment currency. Our model had to withstand a simulated earthquake for 10 seconds. To summarize, the intended outcome of this challenge was to build a model with limited resources that fits the given guidelines that can survive an earthquake simulation.

So here is our finished product on the right- but how did we get there? To start with, we divided our team into roles. While the assessment recommended preset roles, we decided that it would be better to assign our team members specialized and individual tasks based on our skills and what we needed to do at the time. So let’s take a look at the strengths of my team members:

• Josh- Josh is a confident and collaborative person, and he was the “communicator” of the group, with his natural confidence. He communicated with our teacher when we needed help, and sought feedback from other peers about our deisgn.
• Jack – Jack was the “thinker” of the group, thinking and desiging new designs. He was also the one to organize the group and make sure everyone was on track.
• Yohan – The researcher. Yohan spent a lot of time away from school, so he was not able to physically help a lot. However, he did do a lot of the research as that was something he could do outside of school.
• Me – I was the designer of the group, working alongside Jack. One of Jack’s weaknesses is that he lacked the skill to imagine things in a 3d space, so I used my strength in creativity and drew up pictures of the towers to make Jack’s designs more cohesive.

But apart from our individual roles, we also worked together as a group- I made a teams chat so we could collaborate in school when someone was away, and out of school over the weekend as well. We collectively agreed on the final design, and did the research together as well. We all assisted in the building of the tower as well.

The Process

First, we researched. We took inspiration from real-life buildings that withstood earthquakes and identified parts of their design that helped them with their stability. We then applied this research to our own design, and made our first tower!

Then, we tested it on the shake table that simulated an earthquake. After the test, we identified that the base was very unstable. The tower also leaned under the minimum height post shake, so we redesigned the build with a more stable base, opting for a rectangular prism instead of our previous cross base.

The actual outcome of our challenge was successful. Our final tower was stable and can be seen on the right in the simulated test conditions, and it only leaned by 1cm (compared to our original tower leaning by 2cm) At the end of the day, our building was able to meet all the success criteria. We communicated well even when our team was in and out of school, made sure we were well prepared before building.

If I were to do this project again, I would try and organize my time more as our time management skills were poor, which left us rushing the second half of the design.