The team designed a floating Olympic village sculpture for a CANstruction competition with the theme of Olympic Engineering. They contacted the engineering company that originally designed the floating village concept and received permission to use the design. The team then altered the proportions of the original design in Photoshop to fit the required 3m x 3m space. They calculated the number and types of cans needed and carefully constructed the sculpture over multiple stages, taking photos along the way. In the end, they were pleased with the final product and that many cans would be donated to charity.

1. CANstruction Reflection
The idea
After being told the topic and theme of this year’s competition, Olympic Engineering, we began researching and
brainstorming possible designs. There were many possible designs, but many were either uncreative or unappealing in
their appearance as we immediately thought of the cliché things about the current Olympics. Soon, though, we came
across the website of a “floating Olympic Village”, and it seemed to be the perfect design for our entry. We had to then
find out whether it was alright for us to use the design in the competition, as it was, most likely, protected by copyright.
Thus we decided to contact the company owning the design, Bartels Consulting Engineers. The "floating Olympic
Village" has separate elements that each represent an arena or section that would be used in the 2028 Olympics whilst
also representing something about the Olympics. For instance, the tip of the design resembles the flame of the Olympic
torch and would be used as the main athletics stadium and also for the opening and closing ceremonies. The rings are
each of the stadiums used for different events in the Olympics. These stadiums include the Aquatics Centre, holding
swimming, diving and other water sports, a velodrome for cycling events, a stadium for tennis courts, a gymnasium and
also a field for non - track and field events such as shooting. The fronds around the outside of the design, excluding the
torch, represents the old tradition of the olive wreath giving at the Ancient Greek Olympics; these would be used as
accommodation for the athletes. They would be similar to house boats.
Contacting the engineering company
After finding a potential design, we were able to contact the engineering company, Bartels Consulting Engineers and
inform them of our idea, and asked them if we were able to use the design for the floating Olympic Village. This was the
winner out of a competition held for staff inside the company about a design possibly being used for the 2028 Olympic
Games. The Communication and Marketing Advisor of the company soon replied, informing us that they were
“honoured that [we] want to use it”.
Altering the proportions of the design
After we had decided on the design and were happy with the idea, there was the problem of fitting it into the allocated
dimensions of 3m x 3m. With Photoshop, we were able to alter the dimensions, stretching and cropping the image so
that the design was able to fit in a square area. From here we were able to change some of the aspects of the original
design. For example, we decreased the distance between the torch and the rings arena. We also removed half of the
fronds around the rings arena. This, in our opinion, enhanced the appearance of the design and would improve the final
construction. Also for practical reasons, we may not have been able to fit the cans in the original, rectangular design.
The mathematics of the idea
There were several changes that we wanted to make before the process of building with the design. This required us to
Photoshop the picture to come up with an overall rough design. Half of the fronds of the wreath were taken out, the
torch was made bigger. We also took out the path between the torch flame and the ring stadiums and the design of the
ring stadiums were changed slightly. We could then print out the outline of the design and find out the scale of each
main shape. From there, the rough idea of the design was cut out in the real size and amounts of cans needed were
determined. We then needed to work out how many cans and of what type needed to be donated. The diameter of the
cans also needed to be measured and made sure that everything would fit in the allocated space with considerable
empty space so it would still look appealing left. The different sizes of cans, not only the type of food in the cans, had to
be considered for which was suitable for which element.
The different cans we used and how they would be of use to the Salvation Army (what type of food we considered).
The type of food that we have chosen have not only been because the colours were suitable but considerable thought
was put into what sort of food was chosen. The cans chosen are cans that we thought, out of all the suitable coloured
cans that could have been used that the cans chosen were most likely to be used or were more suitable. This makes it
more easily used by the people of the Salvation Army and the people eating the particular food will appreciate the food
more if they got canned spaghetti instead of canned mustard seeds.

2. Pictures of the CANstruction process
We got started straight away, marking out areas that were going
to be used for several limits and guidelines.
As we stepped back and admired our work we were motivated
to keep going and thought it looked great so far.
Everything had to be perfect so here we are making sure cans
face exactly the right way, in or out, what looked best etc.
As the fronds and wreath were built we were pleased that it was
coming together how it was.

3. The finished product; everybody was happy and very pleased to see that it had all turned out well and looked good.
We were also very excited about the amount of cans going to charity.