Make and Break Project

Make and Break was the name of our final project for this term. The brief; to build a crane-like structure to support a 1kg bag of sugar, and the sugar must have a clearance of 500mm from the base and 400mm from the main structure. The structure itself could only be made from 3mm dowel, string and glue (to make things that little harder!).This project was done in groups (in which we choose the groups), therefore me and 4 other close friends went together knowing we work well together!

Below are the original concepts we created based upon research in modern day cranes.          

 

After a week of research and experiments with smaller scale models, we produced a final design idea which we then spent 2 weeks building! (Below shows a design drawing of the proposed structure and below two photographs of the finished product)

Once complete, the structure was put through its paces to see if what we built could fulfil the brief and support a 1kg bag of sugar. As we had already performed several pre-tests we knew already that the structure was able to support the single bag of sugar but no more (meaning that the structure was not overdesigned), meaning the brief was achieved!

As a whole, the project was very entertaining! The group in which I was working with was very supportive and energetic meaning the work never seemed to get on top of us (we finished we days to spare). As of all projects, there is always room for improvements which you would like to do, I would suggest that if I and the group had the chance to return to the project we would look into strengthening the structure so it could hold 2 or more bags of sugar.