Cornell Seismic Design: Advancing Earthquake Resilience

WHO WE ARE

We are a student-run project team under the Cornell University College of Engineering. Our team designs and constructs a 5-ft-tall balsa wood structure to compete in the annual Seismic Design Competition hosted by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute. Our team offers a unique opportunity for students interested in all engineering disciplines, especially those focused in construction, structures, architecture, and seismology, to experience the process of bringing a project from an abstract thought to a tangible product. Through our work, not only do we aim to create innovative structural solutions to challenging design scenarios, but we also encourage team members to build leadership and communication skills! 

OUR MISSION

We are passionate about designing safer structures for regions impacted by seismic activity. During the school year, we explore creative ways to improve earthquake resilience, whether it's researching dampers, developing a variety of structural designs, or simply testing our balsa wood models. At the competition, the tower is scored on a number of categories including architecture, model predictions, building revenue and costs, team presentations, and most importantly whether the structure survives all three ground motions. In 2017, our team ranked 1st out of 33 teams at the competition in Portland, Oregon and we need your help to continue our success! 

WHY DONATE?

Among the expenses that we need your help to cover are balsa wood and glue to construct our tower, new construction tools to boost the quality of our builds, and licenses for advanced software such as Revit and Rhino to bring our architectural rendering to a new level. Additionally, your support will enable us to make the necessary software upgrades on our current outdated shake table in order to provide a more precise seismic analysis. In the past, the number of teammates attending the competition was limited based on funding restrictions so your support will help us reach our goal of bringing all team members to our competition in Salt Lake City this year!