Build
Triangles, Triangles, Triangles!
Our first step toward constructing our earthquake-proof building is making the walls. Triangles are the most sturdy shape, so we decided to make all of the outer walls out of triangles. Our process to make the triangles was challenging; it took about 3 minutes to make one triangle, and after making calculations, we realized we would need 40 triangles for our design! To make one triangle, we would need three straws of different lengths: two half-length straws (Approx. __ cm) and one quarter-length straw (Approx. __ cm). Then we connected them by putting separated paper clips into the straw openings, and secured them by puncturing toothpicks into the corners.
Assembling the Building
After making the triangles, we used the pipe cleaners to attach them. At first, we used the pipe cleaners like a sewing needle and thread, and "sewed" them together. However, this took up to much of our materials, and we decided to just tie the triangles together on each end, and the middle. This used less of our materials, and had the same amount of strength. We placed the triangles together, one right-side-up, and one upside-down, so that when together, they would form a rectangle. The first floor is 2x2 rectangles, the second floor is 1x1 rectangles, and the third floor is 1x1 rectangles made with triangles half the usual size.
Rooting Our Building
Another challenging step was attaching our building to the styrofoam base. We decided to use popsicle sticks, sticking them in the base to hold up the building and keep it in place. We plan to wrap cards around the sticks to secure them and prevent them from moving The styrofoam base is easy to puncture, which means that with force, the skinny popsicle sticks could wiggle around with support.
Lack of the Right Materials and Fitting Requirements
One of the conflicts we forgot about when building our structure was the height requirement. Our building has to be at least 30 centimeters tall. We ended up adapting our first design for this reason. Each floor would be 9 cm tall, and we were planning on making only three floors, with the top one being a half size smaller. This drove us crazy, trying to quickly find a way to make our building taller within the limited materials. We eventually decided on duplicating the middle floor, so we could have a four floored building that was approximately 31 1/2 cm tall. Another conflict we came across in the building stage of this project was the quantity of materials. There were some types of materials, like the fat popsicle sticks, that we didn't use at all, and there were some types we would need more of than allowed. Ms. Manning decided to make a new rule, in which we could trade in extra materials, one for one. We traded in almost all of our fat Popsicle sticks in exchange for the required paper clips used to make each triangle.