Constructing environment Week 2 studio journal Jianpeng deng 657598 This week studio class, each one of us was asked to talk about what we have learnt from the textbook. Also, the quiz test is started this week onwards. I got to admit that I did very badly in the question-‐asking section and the quiz. There it came to the assignment discussion, with the advice by the tutor, I finally had an orientation of doing the first assignment, which is to find a family of cube shape. And for the second assignment, I chose the SPANMAN option. The word I got for the studio glossary is “truss”. The class group work for this week is just like the one for last week, is to build a “ta”. However, this time the material that we used is different, they are 25-‐string balsa sheets and glue. The objective is to build it as high as possible, but the most crucial problem is the base design must be strong enough to hold the whole structure stable; because unlike the brick structure, the strings are soft and glue hardly sticks the joints firmly if there is too much forces applied on the particular joints. Actually, by the end of the tutorial, I learnt that the design of the structure is also important. Here are the pictures of our group’s work.
Picture 1 Picture 2
Picture 3 The interesting thing is our “ta” was really high enough that it was the highest among the three “ta”. However, it could not stand straight but have to lean against the wall. There we then found out the reason why this happened, it was because the height lifted up the center of gravity of the “ta” too much, and also the base was not strong enough, hence if there is a slightly slant angle, it will lean away and fall. Another interesting thing I have learnt is that, when there is a force push the “ta” downwards, it will bend the strings to break apart right in the middle, I guess this is due to the Newton’s second law, forces apply conversely. Shown as image 1.
Image 1
By “destroying” other groups’ “ta”, we also conclude that, it cannot be built stiff when the strings is not cut properly. In addition, due to the natural of the material, which is the balsa strings, the “ta” would rather bend a bit than breaking instantly; it is said as the flexibility of material. Shown as image 2.
image 2