In addition to creating damage on structures, earthquakes may have a severe effect on the surrounding communities, evoking fear. Waves from the Tohoku tsunami reached a heights of 40 metres, The tsunami caused more than 450,000 people to become homeless. Over 15,500 individuals lost their lives. The country’s infrastructure was also badly damaged by the tsunami. If we are able to build infustructure that is stable in worst case scenarios. We will be able to not only stop some of the inevitable damage, but also save lives.
roles
- Project Manager: Harry
- Equipment Manager: Zoe
- Speaker: Jasmine
- Reporter: Ayush
In this project we were challenged to create a building out of spaghetti that could withstand a simulation of an earthquake. However there were requirements that needed to be completed for the test to be deemed successful.
- need to withstand the earthquake simulation of S and P waves for 10 seconds each
- a maximum base of 30cm by 30cm
- minimum top platform of 5cm by 5cm
- minimum height of 60cm
- costs less that $60 (1 piece of spaghetti is $1 and 1 gram of blue tack is $1)
this was our groups initial plan. we wanted to have a triangular base as it is a strong base. As well as cross bracing for extra support. However once we began building the plan quickly changed as we realised this was not a good tactic. this was because it was difficult to build and didn’t work with the small amount of materials we were able to use.
When we started building we came up with the concept of having a larger base for stability and building up with triangular walls instead of a regular rectangular shape. we decided to keep the triangle base because it is one of the strongest shapes.
When we tested our structure for the first time the middle and top snapped. This is because we only used double supports of spaghetti on the base and not the other 2 floors. so in the process of rebuilding we re-enforced the 2nd 2 floors with 2 thick supports. This is so if one of them snaps then the other one is still standing and it wont crumble.
