The hardest part of building the tensegrity tower was finding a starting point and understanding the pattern of the structure of the 3D model we used as a reference. The strings kept shifting around at first because some weren’t attached as strongly as the others. It was annoying to tighten the loose strings that would occur when some other string got tightened somewhere else. Another challenge was making the tower stand completely upright and straight, as one loose string was enough to tilt the entire structure. Thus, as you can imagine from my description, we spent hours just tightening a bajillion strings only for them to get loose again when testing the tower with weights. We tied the strings down after being somewhat sure they were in their final position, but even after that, we had to retie many of them. But it was quite satisfying seeing the structure rise to its intended shape with something as simple as a few strings. In the end, we decided to paint the white strings black as they make the whole thing look less busy, as black fades into the background more seamlessly than white. Finally, we added the Chinese Tower part. In the end, our structure passed both of the required stability tests. We’re finally done!
(author: Emilie)