Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Discussion Questions from your Mentor

Upload the questions that were posed by your mentor here and answer them.


Ms Lee: Shouldn't the structure of one part of the tower be applied throughout the height to make the tower more stable?
Ans: Yes it should, it would reinforce every part of the tower, from the base to the top of the tower.

Ms Lee: How did your structure enforce stability into the water tower? How did you build up from all the ideas and what did you learn?
Ans: We made many reinforcements to the tower, especially on the base by adding balsa wood sticks to the higher parts of other balsa wood sticks to prevent the bending of the balsa wood. We also reinforced the areas around the cup so that it will not topple while the weights are being put on. Smaller pieces of balsa wood were used to connect all the longer pieces at different heights in the joints so that it would be more sturdy. After one of the tests, one of the sticks was bending, so we put another stick attached to it so that it will not bend.

We combined all our best ideas and put them together, taking into consideration stability, strength and durability, while putting the most use to our materials. We learnt that consistency throughout the structure is important to keep the structure's shape to ensure that the structure was stable.

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