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What's Influencing Engineers' Choices For Buildings?

Q: What are the factors that influence engineers’ choices for adding elements that make a building more resistant to earthquakes?

A: I think that one factor that influences engineers' with their choice for adding elements is that bigger buildings should be able to sway. If they make sure that their building sways, but they also have to make sure that their building doesn't sway that much till the point of touching nearby buildings. So the factor would be the location of the building. Another thing factor that influence engineers' choices is making sure that the first story of their building must be well supported, and that the connections between layers should be strong. Another factor that is very important that would influence an engineers' choice is the different types of materials they choose to use to build their buildings. Using wood and steel is better than using brick, stone, and adobe, which are brittle and will break. By using wood and steel to support your building, it would also absorb the shock of the waves.

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How are we doing?

I think that we're doing pretty good, we had our base done and started on adding our different floors. We started off roughly, not having the right materials or not having the right amount, but we still didn't want to spend that much money. We had another plan with our base, which was similar to our first plan, but we twitched it a bit. After figuring out how to deal with our isolated base, we started rolling. We started to join the base and the first floor, and even started to add our cross bracing. During the next lesson, we plan on finishing adding the floors and the cross bracing, and maybe to even start practicing.

Before the cross bracing 

Our isolated base 

Current Progress 

Earthquake Proof Structures

Q: What are the forces generated by earthquakes and other factors that affect building stability?
A: I think that one factor that affects the stability of the building are the seismic waves. The seismic waves are the energy from the earthquakes. They move outward in all directions away from their source. Since that there are two types of seismic waves, the body waves and the surface waves. In an earthquake, body waves are responsible for the sharp jolts, this would lead to unstable buildings into pieces. But something that makes an earthquake deadly is population density, the size of the earthquake, and the type of ground. Something that we did with our plan of our building, is that we decided to had an isolated foundation, that will hopefully help prevent the building from falling while being on the shake board. When we first started, we were told that the plan for our first building was not going to be successful and that it would collapse. So we decided to re-draw our plan, I think that we had concluded on one design, and tried using the cross bracing method and the isolation foundation method. Next class we will attempt to start building our structure.

Our current plan 

Our first design plan 

Learning From Earthquake Resistant Buildings

Recently, we've been assigned a group project to make an earthquake resistant building. Before actually getting down to business, we had to independently come up with ideas of how we could build these resistant buildings and what we should avoid. Something that I learned that would help the building from being destroyed is to use cross bracing. By using the cross bracing method, it absorbs the motion during an earthquake and protects the building from damage. Another thing that I would make sure to add to our building is that the bottom or also known as the foundation should be symmetric. The third thing that I learned from my building design board is that the materials that we use should be light weight. One thing that I would definitely avoid is having the foundation be asymmetric, as I read that asymmetric buildings undergo torsion and extreme corners are subjected to very large earthquake forces. Another thing that I learned, that I will not be adding to my building is having sudden changes in lateral stiffness. Something that I learned, that is pretty interesting but will not fit to class made buildings, is that buildings should not have swimming pools or large tanks of water at the top of the building. Thirdly, we will avoid to make our building very slender. Lastly, something we will avoid is to make our building in a inverted pendulum type building. In conclusion, with this activity, I've learned a few things about what makes a good earthquake resistant building and what we should avoid in this project.

IT Brickfilms #3

Mathematical Reflections #2

In math class, we've recently started a new unit on integers and rational numbers. In the last unit, we started off with the first mathematical reflection, so here's another. The first question asked was (1.A.) "How do you decide which of two numbers is greater when both numbers are positive?" Well, when you first look at a number, if one number has more digits than the other, then that number with more digits is greater. If they both have the same number of digits, then look at the first digit of the number, if it's greater than the other, then that number would be greater. If the first digit is equal to the other number's first digit, then look at their second digit. Looking at the second digit and so forth, and seeing if they are greater or less than the other number's helps identify the greater number. (1.B.) "How do you decide which of two numbers is greater when both numbers are negative?" You can tell if one negative number is greater than the other by looking at a number line and looking at which one is close to zero. If you're not looking at a number line, just ignore the negative sign, and look at the actual number (digits.) The smaller number is greater while the greater number is smaller. For example, -10 and -5, -5 is greater. (1.C.) "How do you decide which of two numbers is greater when one number is positive and one number is negative?" We all know that the positive number is always the greatest. When you look at a number line it could help you determine the greater number by looking at the placement of the numbers. The positive number would be on the right and the negative number would be on the left.

(2) "How does a number line help you compare numbers?" A number line can help you compare numbers because as said before the negative numbers are on the left and the positive numbers are on the right. When comparing one negative number and a positive number you can just look at where the number is, either on the left or on the right. If you are comparing two positive numbers, you can look at a number line and see which one is closer to zero, if it is closer to zero than it is less than the other number. Something similar would go for the negative numbers, the number closer to zero would be greatest. Something that could help you on the number line, is using the jumping method. No, you don't actually jump on a number line. When you are using the jumping method, you see how many jumps it would take one number to get to another.

(3) "When you add a positive number and a negative number, how do you determine the sign of the answer?" When you add a positive number and a negative number, the answer will also be a positive number. For example, if you're looking at a number line, and the problem you're trying to figure out is +7+-5=? You would start at 7 and you would count towards the zero, since negative numbers are on the left, you would "jump" to the left. You would end up landing on 2. Alway remembering that whenever you add a positive with a negative, you end up with a positive number.

(4) "If you are doing a subtraction problem on a chip board, and the board does not have enough chips of the colour you wish to subtract, what can you do to make the subtraction possible?"
Knowing that when you add negative one to positive one, those numbers cancel each other out, meaning that they would equal zero. If you add an amount of pairs (negative one and positive one) to the problem, it would just be adding zeros, so it wouldn't harm the equation. Then, by breaking these pairs up, you get enough chips for both the positive and the negative, by erasing the extra chips, you are able to make the subtraction possible.

This picture of a number line, was taken from Creative Commons. 

This picture of negative and positive number chips, was taken from Creative Commons.

Wellness/Fitness 2014

How smoothly would your wellness wheel roll?
I think that my wellness wheel would roll pretty smoothly, but sometimes it may not. I think my wheel is mostly pretty balanced, but in some places it would be a little unbalanced.

In which areas of your life are you most well?
One area of my life that I am most well is in my social wellness. I have many friends that I can go to in good times to celebrate and I have friends that I can call whenever I feel sad or low. Sometimes, not most times, but sometimes I also express my emotions by laughing, crying when I'm sad and I also express anger or fear. I take time for fun and I have a satisfying and fulfilling relationship with my family, even though sometimes we fight.

In which areas of your life are you least well?
The area of my life that I'm least well in is my psychological wellness. I don't always achieve goals I set for myself, but sometimes I do. Most times I put off important tasks to the last minutes, and I definitely need to work on that.

What improvements would you like to see in your wellness wheel?
I would like to see my psychological wellness improve, so my wheel could be more balanced. I can achieve this by achieving more goals, associating with more people with positive attitudes, etc.

MY WEEKLY FITNESS

Record an average week of fitness. List your average daily exercise in the table below.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1 hour of walking	30 minutes of walking	1 hour of walking	1 hour of jogging	30 minutes of swimming	1 and a half hours of power walking/running	one hour of swimming

What healthy benefits of exercise caught your attention?

One of the healthy benefits of exercise that caught my attention was that exercise improves your posture and that it can reduce the risk of breast cancer by 60%.

What benefit would you like to improve at?

One benefit that I would like to improve at, well as I said before, exercise improves your posture. And as my mom has always told me, I have pretty bad posture, so that would be something that I would like to improve at. 

In your opinion, are you getting enough exercise? Explain.

Even though I do get some exercise in throughout my week, I still think that I should be getting more exercise. I do walk and run throughout the week, but I think that if I joined a sport that I enjoyed I would definitely get enough exercise.

If you need to make some changes, what are they and how will you achieve them? If you get enough exercise, how will you maintain?

One change I need to make is to do a lot more exercise, I will achieve this by getting motivation such as friends to come and join me, so I could also fit in another factor of wellness to the exercise part. If I do achieve the goal and if I do get enough exercise I will hopefully maintain this by writing down a schedule and writing how long I've been doing exercise.

List 3 ways in which exercise helps you maintain different areas of your wellness

1. Exercise can help you socialize with more people. Joining a new sport, means joining a new team full of people, so what a better place to meet new people.

2. As most of the benefits were talking about, exercise really helps your physical feature. It makes you more fit, and yet you are much more healthier. Exercise also reduces the risk of sicknesses.

3. Exercise can help your spiritual wellness improve.