A Shaking Weekend

Introducing and Demonstrating Earthquake Engineering Research in Schools. IDEERS. A competition hosted by the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). Now that's the real reason why I went to Taiwan. We competed with schools from Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Hong Kong and Japan. We create model structures and had them tested on a shaking table. The first day, Saturday, was the day for model-making while the second day, Sunday, was the day for testing and awarding.

Well, our undergraduate teams didn't win but one of our graduate teams won first place! Aside from that, both graduate teams gathered special awards (best in architectural design and best poster).

Winning team, G-9

G-10

C-35

C-37, my team

For the undergraduate teams, the goal is for the structure to fall at 900 gals. Although falling at 900 gals doesn't assure winning. There are other rules on scoring. By the way, gals is centimeters per second squared, the measure of the acceleration of shaking.

C-37's structure and poster
Their structure fell at 600 gals :(

C-35's structure and poster
Their structure fell at 800 gals :(

While for the graduate teams, the structure should fall at 1050 gals. No structure fell at 1050 gals but G-9's structure was the only structure that fell at 1100 gals so they won. We were actually afraid because their structure started rocking (moving significantly and almost seemed like falling) at 800 gals. I didn't think it would stand until 1100!

CHAMPION STRUCTURE! Fell at 1100 gals
First Place, Best in Architectural Design
Second Place, Best Poster

Their structure fell at 800 gals because of the bad welding and not the bad design :(
Third Place, Best in Architectural Design
First Place, Best Poster

Structures on the shaking table, ready to be tested

Our student ambassadors, Kristine and Henry, also went to NCREE in the afternoon. Before leaving, Kristine seemed a bit hesitant to give me a hug (perhaps because we only knew each other for a few days) but I hugged her anyway. I'll definitely miss our student ambassadors. :(

Congratulations, winning team! Funny nung flag, nasa cellphone haha.

I love how Taipei 101 is seen from NCREE's entrance. How fitting. Sorry, that's the best photo I got. And someone had to pass in front of me hence the dark figure haha. I set the shutter speed to 1 second but I can't stay steady for one second haha!