Being a Height Engineer means I had to make sure the structure is a certain height. Many people wander what workers use to make such amazing buildings. Workers use many different kinds of materials, such as concrete ( a mixture of water and cement powder), steel (an alloy of iron and carbon) depending on geography and the type of structure they are building. Workers use many types of methods to make a building structure stronger. One of the most valuable plans is to use beams. A beam is a structural element that bears a load.  Beams can be made of wood, steel or concrete; these are all appropriate materials since they can withhold large amounts of compression according to their length and material and shape. Beams are made in many different shapes and sizes. For instance an I-beam, flange, universal column, angle and pipe are all the different shapes that beams come in. The I-beam is the most efficient cross section, however if you want to have the most efficient shape for both directions you would use the square shell. The efficiency is a term that means volume of beam per length. Shapes such as the angle, pipe, flange etc are used in special circumstances. I researched five buildings to see what real professionals use to make such big buildings. Here are some of the tallest buildings in the world. The  John Hancock building in Chicago Is made of steel. The special design uses exterior cross-bracing which eliminated the need for support beams and reduces the amount of steel needed by 50%.  The X-bracing is part of the tubular system that makes sort of a spine so that the building can withstand high winds and earthquakes.  This type of design increases the amount of floor space inside the building without losing height.  Some interesting facts include an annual stair climb to race up the 94 floors is called Hustle Up the Hancock and the record time is 9 minutes 39 seconds. The Empire State Building in New York City was built in 16 months out of a steel frame and stone cladding. The façade is made of limestone and granite from Indiana. The Chrysler Building is a steel framed, metal clad building in which t was one of the first uses of stainless steel over a large exposed building surface. Used car parts as decorative items.  The Sears Tower  in Chicago uses9 interlocking  tandem tubes instead of tube-in-tube system, and belt trusses to reduce wind shear. Remains the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere. The CN Tower in Toronto is made of concrete, and 3 types of steel, tensioned, reinforcing and structural. One of the 4 observation decks is made entirely of glass. I thought of some questions while i was working and they were. Is it better to have tension or compression?What base structure should we use? This project was a very fun and challenging experience.

This is a picture of me working on or project which held 270 pounds.

this is a picture of our team in action.

I Interviewed my uncle. He is a masonry specialist. I asked him a few questions. I asked him what would be the best shape to use , he said circle would be the best. Then I asked him how do you support it , he said make sure to have a strong base, and and have a lot of inside support. then I wandered if tension or compression is better for a big building. He said that its better to have compression since you have so much weight on the structure. Then he said it was better to have a shorter and fatter structure rather than a tall and thin since it has more support. I couldn't think of the best way to build a structure with only ten file folders and glue until my uncle told me to have a rally short and fat structure so that it will hold up a large amount of weight. The best material to use would be steel since it can hold up a tremendous amount of weight. My uncle told me that it was better to have support on the inside rather than on the out side. Lastly he told me to make all the sides equal so their are no weaknesses.

Our design was well suitable for the height criteria since it was over 9 inches. Even though our structure did meet the weight criteria, since it held more than 45 pounds; it only held 270 pounds total. Our design had weak points to not being able to not hold as much weight as anticipated as I thought our structure could hold about 400 pounds.Some benefits of our design were that we used all of the manila folders, which made our structure stronger. We also used a lot of corrugation which made it much stronger. Lastly, we weaved scraps of the manila folder in an attempt to help with tension.  One of the weaknesses in our design was that it was too small around.  This small area led to weak points in the structure and less than optimal balance. Lastly, we noted our structure’s base was lopsided and therefore provided an unstable foundation.Some modifications we would make would be to make our structure larger around and provide a more stable foundation.  Also, by using more corrugation, we could potentially have a stronger structure.  Adding strips of folder to the outside of the structure would provide added strength to possible weak points.