1. What did you contribute to your team?
I was the scientist in my group, so basically I drew the two prototype, contributed one idea of how to do the base of our tower, and helped with the fabricating process.
2. What do you think engineers have to consider when they suggest which materials would be best for a certain structure?
I think that the engineers should have considered about whether this material used in certain place meets the requests of felxibility, stability, and would be apllied well or just falls down.
3. What forces cause the tower to tip over?
The gravitational kinetic energy is what caused the tower to tip over. Besides, if the tower did not have a stable base - which is usually consists of a shape of triangle - then it would lose the equality and quickly fall down.
4. What features of the design helped your tower to reach new heights?
We used a triangle-shape base to support all the materials that we used to build the tower later on, since triangle is the most stable structure of all shapes. In addition, we connected the standing spaghetti with some shorter spaghetti parallel to the table, which made it more difficult for the tower to tip over. The top of the tower is a little triangle that we made at the beginning, it is small, slight, but very stable, and it is why our tower could be that tall.
5. After testing what changes did you make to your tower?
We wanted to make the spaghetti cross over each other layer by layer, then we realized that it would be too short, so we decided to use the triangle as the base and lifting some spaghetti up.
6. Engineers early ideas rarely work out perfectly, How does testing help improve your design?
It literally helped us on abondoning those prototypes that were not as good as we thought them to be. It is different to work on the paper rather than on the actual materials. We got to experiment whether our ideas were good or not, and it really helped us a lot.
7. What did you learn from watching others?
Before the time was up I did not have time to watch others' works. But after seeing the failure of those towers, I think I learned that we should make a stable base and nice sturcture first. Not only for making the tower, but also for doing anything else.
I was the scientist in my group, so basically I drew the two prototype, contributed one idea of how to do the base of our tower, and helped with the fabricating process.
2. What do you think engineers have to consider when they suggest which materials would be best for a certain structure?
I think that the engineers should have considered about whether this material used in certain place meets the requests of felxibility, stability, and would be apllied well or just falls down.
3. What forces cause the tower to tip over?
The gravitational kinetic energy is what caused the tower to tip over. Besides, if the tower did not have a stable base - which is usually consists of a shape of triangle - then it would lose the equality and quickly fall down.
4. What features of the design helped your tower to reach new heights?
We used a triangle-shape base to support all the materials that we used to build the tower later on, since triangle is the most stable structure of all shapes. In addition, we connected the standing spaghetti with some shorter spaghetti parallel to the table, which made it more difficult for the tower to tip over. The top of the tower is a little triangle that we made at the beginning, it is small, slight, but very stable, and it is why our tower could be that tall.
5. After testing what changes did you make to your tower?
We wanted to make the spaghetti cross over each other layer by layer, then we realized that it would be too short, so we decided to use the triangle as the base and lifting some spaghetti up.
6. Engineers early ideas rarely work out perfectly, How does testing help improve your design?
It literally helped us on abondoning those prototypes that were not as good as we thought them to be. It is different to work on the paper rather than on the actual materials. We got to experiment whether our ideas were good or not, and it really helped us a lot.
7. What did you learn from watching others?
Before the time was up I did not have time to watch others' works. But after seeing the failure of those towers, I think I learned that we should make a stable base and nice sturcture first. Not only for making the tower, but also for doing anything else.