3D spaghetti structure

For our final task on the 3D course we had to take all the things we had learnt and create one final structure out of 20 pieces of spaghetti with only a glue gun to hold the pieces together. To brainstorm ideas we drew different structures down that would hold 3 plastic balls off from the floor. Then we chose one drawing to create a real life structure. Throughout the week I learnt that I triangle is the strongest structure to hold something so I designed 4 different sizes structures in a like so that the plastic balls could sit in between the triangles. I chose to make the triangles different heights and sizes to make it visually appealing and abstract. 

These were some of my designs for the spaghetti structure. I used a range of straight and curved lines to create my structure designs. 

I started off by blue tacking my shapes together so that when I glued them I knew what went where.

My first triangle.

3D triangle

My next triangle was taller and slimmer to show a difference between the triangles.

I bound the joints together with the glue gun. This was hard to work with as the heat from the glue gun would make the spaghetti bend and snap, resulting in the task being tricky. 

My structure coming together.

This was my final structure of 4 triangles in a line. Some of the triangles I had to put a strip of spaghetti in the middle as the width would be to wide and the plastic ball would fall through, but I managed to adjust this as I went along with my design.

This is my structure holding the three plastic balls in place. They are all a similar level which was interesting as I didn't intend for this to happen.

WRAPPING

For our next task we had to create an armour for our structure so that if something was dropped on it, it would survive. I created cones for my triangles as the point of the cone was solid enough to protect the structure. This again loosely related to the triangle structure.

I cut semicircles out of the paper provided and made a slit down the centre. Then I rolled to paper to create a cone and secured with prit stick.

This was the shape of my cones and I varied the size depending on the side of the triangle structure.

This was my structure with the armour ontop. Although it didn't look appealing the concept half worked when the basketball was dropped on top.

AFTER

This was my structure after the netball had been dropped on top of my structure. This proved that the triangle theory is correct and the my semicircle cones did prevent most of the damage to my structure.

Overall in this task I learnt that throughout the week my testing of different products can result in a product being  secure and strong. I was please with how this product looked and worked as it wasn't overly complicated but it was effective.