Stanford Seismic Design Team
The Stanford Seismic Design Team is an undergraduate, student-run group dedicated to designing, constructing, and testing model towers to withstand scaled seismic simulations at the annual intercollegiate Earthquake Engineering Research Institute Competition. In the 2017 competition, our team won 2nd place overall out of 33 teams internationally. I held the position of Social Chair for the team, planning and setting up team bonding exercises, recruiting retreats, mixers, and other social events throughout the year.
At the beginning of the year, I work to spread interest about our club and organize a retreat for new members, where we teach them the basics of structural analysis, as well as participate in group bonding and social activities. Last year we took our team to the amusement park, Great America. I then help to plan the club schedule for the year with the other officers.
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Although my role on the team is Social Chair, I also help with all other aspects of the design, testing, and construction of the tower. Last year, I had my own design that I proposed for the tower, and tested in ETABS. I also performed material testing on our shipment of balsa wood, the construction material for the tower, to test its uniformity, and to find the modulus of each density of wood to use in ETABS testing.
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I am also on the construction team for the group, helping to cut out pieces and build each prototype and final tower. I worked with the campus laser-cutter to cut each piece of our tower from sheets of balsa wood, utilizing Adobe Illustrator for precise cuts. I also helped to construct the tower base.
Together, the team constructed two prototype towers with different designs and tested both on the team's shake table. After analyzing the data from the prototype tests, we took the better structural qualities of each of the two models and combined them in our final design of the tower for competition.
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After competition, I organized an end-of-the year Special Dinner for the team, to celebrate the results of the competition and to encourage members to return to the club the next year.
