What is one thing that you learned that will stick with you about this project?

I learned that energy transfers through contact with other particles, when it heats them up. the particles move faster and transfer energy. I also learned that every particle is moving at different speeds, and when they bump into each other, they transfer energy.

What was the most challenging part of this project? Which character trait did you use to overcome this challenge? 

For me, the most challenging part was writing our cup plans down on paper. We knew what we wanted to do already and had talked it out. My brain knew it was important to show our work, but at the same time, I felt like it was useless. I used discipline to complete my paper with my best work.

What is one thing you are proud of about this project? 

I am proud that our cup was within the price limits, worked the way it was supposed to work, and didn’t have a giant environmental impact. I thought it looked good, worked well, and I would probably use it for my own drinks if there weren't already metal vacuum sealed cups.

If you worked in a group: What did you do to help your team succeed, and what could you have done better?

I helped with giving ideas of how to lessen environmental impact, price, etc. I could have helped more with actually building the cup, though I feel like it is more of a one person job.

Weather unit! 

L.T: I can combine evidenced-based solutions to design problems such as constructing an earthquake resistant building in order to create a new solution/design

Test and evaluate the situation

Name 3 problems you encountered during construction and explain how you solved them.

1. Our original plan was to have our building hang off of the ground, but our exterior structure wasn't tall enough, so both buildings were anchored on the ground.

2. We almost ran out of paper clips, and so we had to take off some paper clips and replace them with bent half-straws (A new trick we came up with!!)

3. Our interior structure swayed a lot and we thought it was going to collapse. We fixed this by adding half-straws connecting the interior building to the exterior structure

During construction, how did you test the strength and stability of your structure?

We tried to replicate the earthquake machine by placing the base on our table and sliding it back and forth super fast.  

During construction,  what strategies did you use to strengthen the weaker areas? Why?

We used tape and string to make sure that no joints or connections slid out of place.

What are the strongest parts of your building? Why?

The strongest parts of our building are probably the base straws because they are connected really tightly to cardboard, and the tippy-top of our structure because it is connected in four different ways. 

Where are the weakest parts of your building? Why?

I think that the weakest parts of our building are probably the straws that are connected to the popsicle sticks that held our sandbags, because the way that we had to twist the paper clips around them made it so that the straws got bent a lot and tat made them weaker.

Where did you use string in your structure? Why?
We used  string to strengthen the joints where straws  were connected to paper clips, because some of the joints were weak and didn't hold.
Where did you use  tape in your structure? Why?

We used tape to strengthen spots where a straw went into another straw to form a connection, because sometimes the inner straw would slide out of the outer straw.

If you had 20 more straws and 15 more paper clips, where would you add them? Why?

I think that maybe we would use them to strengthen under the popsicle sticks, because the straws holding the popsicle sticks were one of our weaker spots