Second Day Reflections

Today, we managed to build and complete our water tower in 4 hours. We discussed the different designs and possibilities of the tower failing. After that, we actually came up with a plan but decided to change the whole design. After wasting half a bottle of glue, wood and peeling off dried glue from our fingers, our hard work paid off as our tower managed to come in second with the ability to withstand 51kg of weight. The activity that we did today was quite interesting as we were able to design and test out our ideas. The project has made me understand the difficulties that an architect has to undergo before being able to build those magnificent towers/buildings that we see today. They have to design a building that is not only able to withstand a specific amount weight-load while being able to ace the aesthetics part of the project.

First Day Reflections

I chose project 5 - Water Tower Competition because it was basically designing a whole new tower using not only the structural design, but also the interior and exterior design. I think I will be able to experience a whole new concept of design. I feel that this project will expand my horizon beyond the sciences that I have been interested in. The plenary sessions that we attended today was very interesting especially the one about the Earthquake Research on the Coral Reefs of Sumatra. Not only did I learn about how earth-sciences can help detect and estimate when and how disastrous the earthquake will/might be, but I also learnt that you must have a balance of work and play in order to cultivate a healthy lifestyle. The second plenary session that we attended is about IT for Animation. This proves that creating a simple 2D film/video is very tedious and expensive in the past compared to the technology we have today to help us produce this. Innovation Breakthroughs in Nano-Science and Nano-Technology interested me as this proves that we have always tried to mimic nature.