Design Process
1. Identify the Need or Problem
The purpose of this project is to design a model of a tower that can support the weight of 10 textbooks with using 60 of Popsicle sticks. Since the main purpose of this is to support the weight of textbooks, I thought the base part of the tower has to be really strong and supportive.
2. Research the Need or Problem
I have researched the three main types of towers which are monopole, self-supporting and guyed. They have all different characteristics but the main differences are the steps of construction and how easy or difficult it is to make. Then as I have to make sure it’s perfect and really supportive, I’ve also looked at some constraints I might consider while building a tower. According to the research, the most important part to consider is whether the structure has a good stability and strength that could make the tower stay still and support weight. Furthermore, through researching, I could learn that the structural support for a tower is very important. And to create a good structural support is to make the base, surface (exterior) strong enough to give enough support.
3. Develop Possible Solutions
I am going to make the base very strong and sustainable which would help to maintain and support a heavy weight. I would consider to make the top wide as it could but not weak, as the top has to support some weight as well. However I also need to consider that it can’t be just with the strong base but short; it has to look at least like a usual tower which has to include some height.
Those pictures on the top are my sketches of the two final possible solutions. The first one was very suitable for all of my plans and has ideal look of the tower as it is tall, however I thought 60 Popsicle sticks are not enough to make the base strong. The second one did not need more than 60 of Popsicle sticks and has very strong base, however it’s not tall enough which does not look like a tower. Hence I chose the first one to make my final sketch on the google sketch up. As you can see, it looks pretty much like a tower, however because it has same layers for all parts, it would barely support the weight of 10 textbooks because it’s not strong enough.
4. Select the Best Possible Solution
As this was a group work, everyone had different ideas and different plans. After we developed our possible solutions and create an image of the final solution on google sketch-up, everyone in the group shared ideas and plans, then we decide which one to design for a final tower. Of course everyone had all different and amazing ideas, however in our group, Masahiro’s plan was pretty interesting and everyone thought it would be the most appropriate design for this project. Everyone had different constraints that they considered and we had all different thing that was most important, and Masahiro’s design has all included that which had all planed for proper amount of uses of popsicle sticks and very supportive with strong base.
5. Construct a Prototype
After we selected the best possible solution for our tower design which is Masahiro’s, we started constructing the design of a tower. I thought it would be pretty tough because we had limited materials that we could use which were: scissor, wood-glue, 60 Popsicle sticks. However it turned out pretty well because as it’s just a prototype of the design, it actually did not need much materials to use and was pretty easy to construct which took us very short time to build.
6. Test and Evaluate the Solution
7. Communicate the Solution
After we have constructed our final tower, we tested to see if we met the goal which is to support the weight of 10 textbooks. First we put one small textbook on top of the tower very carefully, and then we gradually add more and more on top of it. As you can see from the pictures above, we have successfully met the goal and we even went more than that because our tower could actually support 23 textbooks which are 13 more textbooks than the achievement. I think the reason why our design was very successful is because we had very strong supports which include not only the base, but also the outer layers. If you look at the picture of our tower, you could see that we have 4 different parts on the outer part of the tower, and it’s to support the weight and push the power more onto the center part.
8. Redesign
I think our group’s design was pretty successful as we have met all of our goals. However if I were to redesign this tower, I just want to make it a bit taller, because as you can see, although it has very strong base and supports on the inner and outer layers, it does not look as much as like a tower. I would probably want to make the height little bit taller so it actually looks similar to a tower, with same ways of supporting, but I think 60 Popsicle sticks won’t be enough to make a tall tower with same strong supports as ours.
Sources
[1] Inspired Design : The Tower | Design. Web. 4th December, 2014.
<http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/en/TheTower/Design.aspx>
[2] Gateshead Council : Constraints That May Affect Your Application. Web. 6th December, 2014.
<https://www.gateshead.gov.uk/Building%20and%20Development/Planning/constraints.aspx>
[3] Europian Trips : Europian Trips. Web. 17th December, 2014.
<http://europeantrips.org/eiffel-tower-iron-lady.html>
After this unit...
Tower design was one of the toughest units of the course for me. From the very beginning, I was struggling with how to use the 60 popsicle sticks wisely in order to build a strong and supportive tower. I lrearnt the important of the balance and the choice of the materials. However there was also some challenges I faced such as failing with the plans I have made before. My group had different designs and ideas that is not quite similar to our final piece. In order to be successful with this project, we went through many struggles and challenges. Overall this project was really challenging for myself, but also interesting because I got to try new things. For next time when I get to create and design something similar, I would defintely research more and be aware of constraints.