Sandy Cheeks

Using sand to illustrate liquefaction, and help students better understand the effects of earthquakes.

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Inspiration

  • to educate students on earthquakes
  • earthquake is a natural disaster happening in the Philippines
  • demonstrate a phenomenon that greatly affects the Philippines in order to better prepare the students for any prospective earthquake strike

What it does

  • Test the strength of different sand compositions under earthquake simulation
  • Test the strength of different house structures under earthquake simulation

How we built it

  • we built different houses using popsicle sticks, one-time chopsticks, tape and hot glue gun.
  • we add water and pebbles to dry sand to create different sand compositions or structures -demonstrate a phenomenon that greatly affects the Philippines in order to better prepare the students for any prospective earthquake strike

Challenges we ran into

  • how to make the experiment relevant to the daily life in the Philippines
  • how to design an experiment with low-cost equipment and materials that are available in the Philippines
  • how to make the experiment construction time around 90 minutes to 180 minutes
  • how to design a house with different structures

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • our project will help people in the Philippines by educating them on the science behind the effect of earthquakes on their house and the ground.
  • our project is low-cost and accessible to everyone but well designed!
  • our project can be done at home as a fun activity to learn about liquefaction

What we learned

  • we learned about liquefaction in material chemistry and tried to apply it in our project
  • we learned about the challenges faced in the Philippines

What's next for Sandy Cheeks

We'll present our project to the judges and hopefully our project will have a chance to help students in the Philippines!

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Updates

posted an update —

Momo and I have finished recording the experimental demo for our project video! I'm now doing the voice-over for our project video to give a brief talk about our experimental procedures. Sandy Cheeks is now working on the teacher's manual!

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posted an update —

Just had another discussion with Leo (mentor) about our new ideas for the second proposal. We received great advices and help from him! We're now getting inspiration from youtube and trying to adapt it for the Filipinos.

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posted an update —

Challenges faced: Our original idea was to build a pendulum to teach kids how it can prevent buildings from collapsing during earthquakes. Yet, the supermentors pointed out that it would be too time-consuming to construct a model building. In addition, as most Filipino live in low-rise buildings, the supermentors also suggested that we do something more relevant to kids living in rural areas. In this way, the kids will find the experiment more fun and engaging.

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posted an update —

Got some valuable feedbacks from the mentors after the first proposal! We've discussed together to improvise our experimental project. We now have another plan for the experiment and will discuss it with mentors on tomorrow since the event is over for today.

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