Question 1
During the engineering process, the rules were you had to make the tower at least 60cm tall and it couldn’t be wider than 30cm by 30cm. Each group was given a $60 budget for their tower with each spaghetti stick costing $1 and each gram of blue tack also costing $1. Each group also had to calculate how much of a ratio it was between the number of spaghetti sticks and blue tack within the $60 budget. Changes I would make to the process to make our group’s outcome better is by playing around with the ratio a little more because we just calculated how much we would need and then just stuck with that for the rest of the project. Instead, I would have tested different ratios and then eventually would have discussed with my group and come to a group decision on which ratio would work best.
Question 2
This project is about being able to use prior research and looking at other earthquake-resistant buildings to try and create a structure out of spaghetti and blue tack that will be put to the test of being able to withstand an earthquake simulation and added weight put on top of the structure. The end goal was for the structure to survive the simulation and add as many 50-gram tiles on top until the structure gave out.
Question 3
Each of us was involved in different parts of the investigation and the actual construction of the structure. I was mainly in charge of researching different ways architects across the world have constructed their buildings to withstand earthquakes. Michael was mainly in charge of the actual construction of the structure whilst Jacob and I helped him every now and again. Jacob also researched ways we could make our building more supportive. Overall we all did a bit of everything and we all contributed to group decisions.