Newspapers Take 1 Newspapers Take 1
Overview:
In groups of about five design a structure, that all your team members can fit in, which will be constructed with 10 sheets of newspaper per person and 10 inches of tape per person. These designs are then handed to another team along with your materials to another team for construction. During construction, improve upon the other team's design. Make sure to document these changes.
My Experience:
Our team made numerous mistakes throughout this exercise. The major mistake we made in the design portion was due to realizing that there was a constraint on tape until after we finalized our design, and then failing to reconsider the amount of tape which our design would use. The build portion of this exercise turned into a total disaster fairly quickly. We made the mistake of jumping right into building what we were handed without checking its feasibility first. Their structure was designed as all rectangles, which is incredibly unstable and our thought that we could simply make it then cross brace it until it worked was severely flawed. We quickly ran into the problem or not enough tape, and our rolling method was not strong enough at all resulting in total structural failure. We learned that tightly rolled newspapers and triangles are necessary in working with newspaper and the triangles idea can of course be applied to many other construction materials.