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1/100 Eiffel Tower (with dirigible)


ATXinventor

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The Eiffel tower is iconic engineering at its best.

 

To experience the feats, the summum of engineering, the Eiffel Tower, a.k.a. La Tour de 300 metres, cannot be too far.

 

Pictures? videos? websites? all fine.

 

Build it? awesome!

 

I will be logging here my build of La Grande Dame, the one that for over a hundred years has seen these ugly bags of water go to and fro.

 

I am actually in business to help kids and grown-ups build their giftings and skills and patch their weaknesses in particular regarding STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and learning and doing and making. I design and make innovative and very out-of-the box and hands-on learning materials mostly focused on supporting each in-progress human creature's individual path and the duty us grownups have to open said path and empower said very unique and very precious being, so s/he will follow that path with strength, purpose, and joy.

 

I believe that learning should be connected with the real world. I strongly believe in individuality, in gumption of the learner and the educator, in exploration, amazement, and fun, in excellence and achievement.

 

The Eiffel Tower has all of that

 

So from making these awesome connectors for soda straws eventually it was time for a master project, a spectacular one, yet within reach of a dedicated youth or a team. The 1/100 scale model of a 300 meter tower measures, well, 300 centimeters (I love it when it's so easy to convert scales and plans). That's 10 feet tall!

 

so here we go.

Edited by ATXinventor
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The Base

208 laser cut connector pieces (plus 4 cardboard base plates). Those 2 pieces are of 14 different kinds.

Each of the 4 legs has 4 main pillars plus 4 pillars for the decorative arches.

 

That completed, you got all of 2 inches from the floor :-)

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  • 1 month later...

OK, turns out that 1/100 is big. I mean, BIG. like in huge, especially parts count. So I sort of kept track until it went past about 2,500 connectors.

I sort of feel it's beyond 4,000 or so by now, plust maybe some 6,000 straw pieces that have to be cut exactly to size - all proportions between parts depend on every strut being proportional - not paying attention to that is what killed version 0.1.

And that means sort of 10,000 possible failure points.

 

Maybe I am totally mistaken in my stategy, but I felt it would be simpler to redo the whole thing, one more time, the third one is..., etc.

 

Fact is, I have probably spent over 50 hours so far in Version 0.2, maybe 20 on the original V. 0.1

Redoing from zero was not quite from zero, since lessons learned are worth something, so v 0.3 is going strong and well after only 4 hours I'd say I am mid-way to where 0.2 arrived at its max, and addressing some issues that got completely out of hand when "fixes" on V 0.2 made the thing complex beyond reason.

I presented a part of v 0.2 during our recent ASMS event - more on that later. Got 3rd Place in its category, which is quite an encouragement.

 

That being said, the v. 0.2 1/100 project is literally shelved (as in stored in some shelves) until I catch up on some other stuff around the place and Life. y'all understand, and if you don't yet, you will :-), Meanwhile v. 0.3 is yet just a computer trace, which for the fun of it I cut in paper at about 1:250 scale. Still missing the last section on top, what you see if 49 inches tall.

 

Laser cut and assembled 2014-10-24 during The Robot Group meeting, many thanks to Wolf and the team.

Took 12 sheets of 20"x14" thick paper, about an hour of laser time.

It was quite flimsy until the magic of engineering structure took over. At this scale the whole tower would have to be less than 24 ounces heavy - amazing how the real thing is strong enough!

 

Thanks, Chris!

post-2718-0-02865100-1414525019_thumb.jpg

Edited by ATXinventor
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