Month: November 2021

Global Goals Project Presentation

Uncategorised

Bat Boxes

Bats are vital animals in our ecosystems. By making Bat Boxes for global goals at all saints and hanging them on a farm in lake grace I am working towards the life on land goal. The Bat Boxes help endangered bats by giving them homes that they lost by deforestation. The bat boxes will also give many positive outcomes to not only the bats but also the farmers and aquatic waterways.

2 – This is another example of a bat box (Note: Most bat boxes are hung is shady areas to prevent bats from overheating)

1 – This is an example of a standard bat box

 

The Global Goals and STEM

3 – this is an example of toxic runoff from crops

For semester 2 I am in a Global Goals project where I have decided to work on life on land goal. My target for this goal is to help the dwindling bat numbers by giving them homes on deforested farmland. By helping the bats and increasing their populations they will eat most of the crop-eating bugs on the farm allowing the farmers to use less pesticide and further helping the life on land goal. This helps the goal as most of the pesticides drain into waterways and cause damage to them killing many fish and aquatic animals. With fewer pesticides used when bat populations increase the damage will be reduced.

 

How Bad is Pesticide Pollution

4 – This map shows the countries and areas most polluted

About 64% of agricultural land is at risk of pesticide pollution caused by the overuse of pesticides. Globally 34% of the high-risk areas are highly biodiverse. 162 Countries are facing this problem caused by 92 chemicals known to be used in agriculture.

5 – This image shows how Pesticides manage to get into our waterways and cause damage

Pesticide pollution is linked to adverse effects on both human and environmental health. Because pesticide pollution is carried by runoffs and waterbodies it hinders the usability of these water sources.

 

The Design Process

When I was building my Bat Boxes there were many challenges that I had to overcome

6 – This is an example of pesticide being applied to crops

Define This is the first stage in my Design Process. I had to define a problem that we are facing, which was agricultural runoff, from this I researched potential problems while maintaining my target, of the life on land goal.

Ideate With an idea of the target and the problem I could begin planning solutions. Of the many solutions that I had researched bat boxes seemed to be the most appealing and interesting. I eventually choose bat boxes as I can make them easily cheaply and hang them on my grandparent’s farm.

7 – These are the Kent bat boxes that I created

Prototype Once I further researched bat boxes I settled on a Kent style bat box design. This bat box best suits microbats which are the bat that lives in WA and on my grandparent’s farm. I then began to make the measurements and purchase materials. Once I had purchased the materials I began to make my bat boxes.

My Project

I created bat boxes to hang on my grandparent’s farm. By helping the bats and increasing their populations it provides positive effects for my grandparent’s farm. Typically bats can eat 500 mosquitos every hour! Not only this but bats can decrease the number of destructive insects attacking the crop, meaningless pesticide is used to protect crops.

8 – These are 2 bat boxes that I have created

9 – These are the openings for the bats to enter the bat boxes

The outcome

I have not yet been able to hang my bat boxes therefore I have not tested their effectiveness. I predict that the bat boxes will reduce mosquito populations and crop-damaging insects. This will therefore reduce pollution runoff as fewer pesticides are used to remove the crop-damaging insects. The bat boxes will also increase bat populations as they will give bats homes on largely deforested land.

In my opinion, I succeeded with my bat boxes because I achieved what I had set out to which was to create bat boxes, I mightn’t have been able to hang them up however I have many plans and backup plans for where to hang them to ensure that bats can live in them. I can assure you this as my grandparents have seen bats on their farm and not far from their place is another place that actually has bat problems and the owner would be willing to pay money to give bats homes outside of his house.

What would I change?

I would plan ahead next time and take more effort to define the question. I would then be able to find a better more accurate solution that would be easier and quicker to accomplish.

I would also try to work more as a group and have team members next time to make the designing and building process quicker and easier. I would also acquire materials and plan beforehand to also make the designing and building process.

Where to now?

10 – examples of multiple bat boxes

I will hang the bat boxes on my grandparent’s farm and see if they are inhabited. My grandparents then can assess the situation about the bugs and the crop to see if the crop damage on none pesticide crops is noticeably reduced. We will also see if the mosquito populations are reduced just by wandering around common mosquito population areas.

If all goes well I will consider making the bat boxes to be sold around lake grace and therefore make a profit while helping reduce pesticide usage and increasing bat populations.

With thanks to:

Ms Donnelly
Ms Brookland
Thomas
Ayush

Science Engineering Challenge

Innovation & Enterprise, Projects, Uncategorised

We have to build an earthquake-proof spaghetti building with a base of 30x30cm base and a minimum height of 60cm. both the spaghetti and the blue-tack will cost money to use to simulate real-world situations. I am hoping to create a spaghetti building that can withstand being shaken on a shake table for 10 seconds. I hope to achieve this by allowing the tower to move as I have seen jointed towers in real-life examples and I hope to recreate this in my model allowing the tower to move and flex on a stable base. I hope to recreate this by using the flexibility of spaghetti to my advantage by creating a strong stable base then connecting the tower using single strands of spaghetti allowing the tower to wobble and flex. I believe the importance of creating an earthquake-proof spaghetti building is that it shows we can potentially save lives through reduce the risk of earthquakes collapsing buildings and potentially killing people.

This is our second spaghetti tower note the large glob of spaghetti in front of the furthest leg is the pendulum.

The engineering process we took for our first prototype was defining, researching, designing then building. We had many hiccups during this process as we had a group change at the start of the engineering challenge which reduced the time we had to work on our design and prototype. Many of our original designs were quite contradictory and therefore we had many disagreeing conflicts however we eventually settled on a rather complicated but in theory effective design. The design we settled on was based on the jointed earthquake-proof buildings that we largely researched and found the most effective. We then built our tower and gave it a small test, it worked but not very well. We then had to test our building on the shake table and it collapsed largely due to a snapped spaghetti piece and an off-centre tower as the tower was balanced on the base. The outcomes of this tower design led us to design a more simplified tower with triangles, as they are the strongest shape and a pendulum to absorb the motion and increase the effectiveness of the triangular design. Our second earthquake-proof building survived a scale 7.3 magnitude earthquake and I believe this is a good outcome for our spaghetti building and design process. I believe that if we had worked more as a team better during the design process we could have created an even better design more based on the motion absorption of the pendulum. I also think that if we had combined our ideas instead of choosing one we would have better solved the conflicts and made a better tower. I would have also changed the way we collaborated as a few people did more work than others and if we all worked together we would have created a better tower.

This is our tower on the shake table, the pendulum has design flaws that could be solved with further designing however it helps absorb the motion which helps reduce the stress on the tower

The pendulum is clearly visible here along with the tower triangular base and its construction method. Note: the pasta on the side of the pendulum is a late improvement to stop it from sticking to the legs.

I was the major design and builder using my math skills and engineering skills to help majorly design both towers. I had a bit of help during the design process from our team members however I was the major contributor towards the end designs. I was also the major builder as I best knew the designs. Most of our group was involved somewhat during the building process and designing process however some people were lacking with their input into our project. I contributed the most I could to my group however by doing this I believe that some others felt there were not needed and therefore kept their input to a minimum. I could have better helped my group by using teamwork skills to help encourage those who otherwise would not have done alot.

This is our first tower, the triangular design was to help stop the tower from twisting. Note: the base wasn’t secured to the tower deliberately allowing the tower to move and, in theory, absorb motion and therefore be effective.

I believe we achieved what we had set out to and I had lots of fun during the process. Our first tower, based on real-life designs had failed miserably and our group did not contribute as much as they could have however we came up with our second design which was simplistic and very effective. Our second tower incorporated more appropriate real-life examples in a more thought out and simplistic way and because of that, it worked more effectively. I had lots of fun completing this challenge and I believe it improved my designing, teamwork and problem-solving skills.