Interhouse — JAKE KETCHUM -- Plan B Projects

WHat is Interhouse?

Every year, each of the 8 student houses at Caltech hosts a party for the other 7 houses. Inter-house is a chance to get to know the rest of campus, but also a chance for each house to show off it's culinary, artistic, and engineering chops. For blacker house that typically means large wooden construction, a mural, and at least a half dozen lighting/arduino projects. LED strips typically feature heavily, and the house AC motors have made their fair share of appearances.

For my part, I usually lead one one of the special-effects type projects, and help with mechanical design and safety checks for the main structure. Below, I have included build posts for a few of the projects I lead. Although a few, the cannons and conveyor belt for example, have been left off for lack of good pictures. If you have any questions about the projects or pictures below definitely feel free to get in touch. In terms of construction, only platform I helped design was 2018, but I have done safety/feasibility evaluations and helped build for several others. So I am also happy to talk about how and why we built things the way we did.

For more and better pictures, check out Siqiao Mu’s website: https://artbyqq.weebly.com/interhouse.html (Everything on there is stuff she personally lead or worked on).

Useful RESOURCES:

The following tables combine to specify allowable loading for a given span, grade, species and lifespan of beam. Consulting these (or something like them) is an absolute non-negotiable must any time a design deviates from interhouse-standard practice. I generally specify a 24 hour design lifespan for 4' structures, and a 168 hour lifespan for any platforms 8' and higher.

Utilities:

This is a collection of scripts I have found useful for checking various parts of the interhouse design process. These are important for making sure that wooden designs can be built safely, and for knowing what grade of lumber is needed for various components.