Week 2 journal

CONSTRUCTING ENVIRONMENTS -week 2 journalCatherine Demetriou, 641497

After having been assigned the task of making a tower that was both tall and stable, my group created the design (to the left).

The large triangles would be the objects that would tie the structure together, while the verticle poles would give the tower height.

However, when designig our this, it seemed that our focus towards the height of our creation ouweighed our focus towards its stabilit and this had consequences that appeared towards the end of the task.

Our original design was inspired by modern day phone towers.

Photo to the right: Steel in the Air, 2013

As we continued to build our structure, we found that it was somewhat weak and easil breakable.

To intially solve this problem we added extra peices of wood to the triangular base of the tower, however, this did not seem to have an strengthening effect.

We then concluded that the reasoning behind the weak structure of our tower was due to the large width of each triangle that was holding our structure together. Had we made the triangles a smaller size, the tower would have been more successful.

As a result of this, when our tower reached a certain height, it slanted heavily and was unable to stand on it own.

Another issue that was faced throughout the building period was time constraint. Due to the instability of our tower, the structure constantly fell apart and the group was forced to constantly rebuild. Thus by the end of the task the structure was unfinished.

Nevertheless, with team work and problem solving the tower was eventually able to touch the roof.

CONSTRUCTING ENVIRONMENTS -week 2 journalCatherine Demetriou, 641497

Other groups, however, were succesful in building their tower as they took different approaches in both the design and building methods.

The group shown in the picture above began their design by not onl utilising triangles of a smaller size but also of a consistent size. The triangular shapes were also placed much closer together than that of our groups tower.

The also decided to construct their tower vertically to prevent any damages during the building process.

This enabled this group to have a stable and very tall tower.

This group was also succesful in building a tower that was stable due to varing design mechanisms.

Instead of creating a base that was triangular like most other groups, this group created a star shaped base. This evenly distributed the weight of the tower on all four corners of the star, making the tower both stable and strong.

This group, however, were also restricted due to time constraints and were unable finish the rest of their tower. Had the finished, it would have been the most succesful tower.