The 11th grade math Sine City project was a reflection of the currently ongoing San Marcos Creek Specific Plan Area Development that has been going on for the past couple years in hope to create a downtown area in the community. This development plan will run along San Marcos Boulevard but is divided into sections. Each lot has its own requirements such as: regulations (height, ratios, setbacks), land requirements (residential/office/business), and environmental requirement (habitats, weather) that needs to be accounted for before designing a plan.
All the students had to take these requirements in considerations. In groups of four, each group was assigned an allotted area in which they had to measure, survey, and research to find all of the regulations needed for that site. Once they had all of the background, students were to sketch and create blueprints of their land. Then, they would create clean outlines on Adobe Illustrator which we would then laser print on to some wood to build 3D models.
My group was assigned the area at the end of the Creek intersecting San Marcos Boulevard and Grand Avenue (which would then turn into Main Street). Since we were one of the buildings that was going to be in the entrance, we knew we had to build something that would really attract people in. So we decided to build a roller rink! A roller rink would attract people of all ages and provide an area where people could have fun and hang out!
Process
Each person had an assigned role, either an architect, engineer, surveyor, or illustrator. Originally I was the architect but soon our group fused together and just worked on everything together without leaving anyone to do work on their own. Since we split up the work for the buildings, I did the elevation views. Based on the requirements, I planned according to it. We didn't want a normal four sided building so we did an L-shaped structure.
After getting these laser printed and getting our site plans printed, we put everything together! Every single group compiled all of their models in a line to make it look as if it were the actual street redesigned! We presented these at our exhibition and guests were able to come and see our displays and play some interactives that tied in with the project.
Math
Throughout this project, we used a lot of math to help us overcome obstacles. For example, many groups had to use right triangle trigonometry and triangulation to calculate heights when buildings were too tall to measure. We also used sun path diagrams to calculate where the sun would be in our location throughout the year to maximize sunlight intake during the winter and keep it out with window awnings during the summer. The golden ratio is believe it or not, also applicable to buildings to bring a focus on an area of the building. In our lot, we used the golden ratio's spiral to create the roller rink!
Reflection
From the beginning to where we are now, I definitely not only learned a lot about trigonometry, but I learned how useful they can be in the real world. It required a lot of precision when it came to taking accurate measurements and scaling properly. We had to be detailed and not let laziness overcome us. One struggle we had at the end was that every time we would put our display away, the next day, we would find it broken. It was ridiculous and we were all so frustrated but we kept it together and were determined to fix it as long as we needed to. We weren't going to give up!
Exhibition
As mentioned above, our final displays were presented at exhibition. Multiple people from our community came to see what we had done. In addition, some students got the opportunity to go to the San Marcos Youth Commission to represent the models we had created. But for the exhibition, all of our models were displayed in order aligned with the streets. Along the borders we had interactives (minecraft, lego bricks) to keep our guests involved!