Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Building assignment - will it hold?

Needed
One chessboard, squares same size as the faces of cubic toy blocks. The toy blocks shall be 85, optionally 101 in number. Sand. Fine tool (like spoon sufficiently small to slip in between two toy blocks). Flat stable place to put chessboard on.
Wanted
To see if the following construction will hold or fall apart.
First level (may be doubled in height, if so you need 16 extra, i e 101 instead of 85):
O O  O O
        
O O  O O
        
        
O O  O O
        
O O  O O
Between levels (whenever there is empty space between non-top blocks):
Fill in with sand, so that following level doesn't fall apart until the one following that stabilises it. Flatten it, so it doesn't interfere with next blocks to be placed.
Level two (noted that each square is really half a square down and half a square to the right from the one marked: with tables, it is difficult to show blocks not right within the squares on the chessboard):
OOO OOOX
OOO OOOX
OOO OOOX
       X
OOO OOOX
OOO OOOX
OOO OOOX
XXXXXXXX
Level three (normal square designation again):
        
 O OO O 
   OO   
 OOOOOO 
 OOOOOO 
   OO   
 O OO O 
        
Note:
The four isolated blocks are really top blocks, no need to fill in any sand between them and the cross.
Level four, top (see caveat for description of level two):
       X
   O   X
   O   X
 OOOOO X
   O   X
   O   X
       X
XXXXXXXX
Finally:
Carefully empty the sand out of the building since as long as sand is holding it together we don't really know if the construction is good or not. For instance, use a spoon, dig in, pull out along the chessboard level.
Desired:
Videos with building process and stable outcome documented.

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