Constructing Environments Week 2 For the this week one of the members of our group had to cut up a balsa sheet into 40 equal strips and similar to the week before we were meant to build the tallest possible structure, however we also had to test how much weight it could support. What we did: We decided to go with a triangular base, instead of a square or rectangular base as it required less material enabling us to build it higher whilst still providing a solid base. However as we started to build it up we realized that because we made the triangle so big, when we added the second level the structure was already too unstable and if we kept on building it that was the structure would collapse without actually adding any wait on top of it, an so we minimized the size of the triangle by building a smaller triangle on the second level and adding vertical pillar on each corner and that stabilized the structure a little more.
However when we got to the third level we ran into the same problem and the structure was very unstable and when we tested it out and tried to add any weight on top of it we some of the pillars started to break and so we decided that instead of keep trying to built it up it was better to leave it at about that high and just reinforce the structure so it can withstand more weight. After adding many overlapping and cross sectional strips the structure was much stronger and stable, however our team became overconfident and decided see if the structure could support one of our phones which at the moment seemed doable, but as soon as we placed the phone on top of the structure it collapsed. The same thing basically happened to all the other groups’ structures apart from one whose structure was much smaller as the strips were much thicker and resistant and they were able to withstand three or four phones without collapsing. Overall I was happy with our design even though it wasn’t able to withstand much weight; I think that if we started with a smaller triangle and instead of using one strip per pillar we used two we could have been much more successful.