🏗 Earthquake Proof Towers?

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Hello Fellow Engineers!

Welcome to this week’s newsletter, packed with the kind of engineering madness you’ve come to expect. We’ve got a 660-ton steel ball hanging out inside a skyscraper, city builders where you can sacrifice people to ancient gods, and Paddy—my trusty assistant—battling his greatest nemesis: a cardboard box.

Also, stick around for the latest Bridge Review (hint: giant stone hands), and if you're ready to get a sweet, sweet dopamine hit, I’ve got a game for you.

Let’s dive into it 👇

A huge thank you to everyone who entered this week's Dungeon Tycoon giveaway! 🥳

And now, the moment you've been refreshing your inbox for...

🥁 Cue the drumroll... 🥁

The lucky winners of Dungeon Tycoon are... Ashleah G., Greenish Squirrel and Luke J.! 🎉

Congrats! Check your emails for those Steam keys—your dungeon-building empire is about to begin! 🏰💰

I’m giving away keys every week, so stay tuned and enter this week’s poll for a chance to score next week’s Game Giveaway!

👷‍♂️ Truss Me, I’m an Engineer…

Taiwan’s 660-ton Steel Bowling Ball

Buckle up, engineers, because we’re heading to Taiwan to meet one of the coolest feats of engineering and possibly the world’s most famous steel ball. This was suggested by a reader, Ben P., in last week’s poll!

Yes, you heard that right – Taipei 101, Taiwan’s tallest skyscraper, has a 660-ton ball suspended inside it. And this isn’t just any ordinary ball you might throw around on a Saturday, this is a finely-tuned mass damper (TMD). This ball is a serious piece of engineering designed to keep the building from swaying during earthquakes and typhoons.

Suspended between the 87th and 92nd floors, the TMD is the world’s largest and heaviest of its kind. It’s made of 41 circular steel plates welded together, forming an 18-foot diameter ball!

When strong winds or earthquakes hit, Taipei 101 would naturally want to sway—except this ball swings into action! The TMD moves in the opposite direction of the building’s sway, absorbing up to 40% of the motion. It’s basically like the building’s personal stress ball! I actually put this concept to the test in Enjiner, where I built my own earthquake proof tower! You can watch that here!

You can actually see it in action during a 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Reddit HERE!

Want to see it for yourself? The TMD is on display between the 88th and 92nd floors, so tourists can admire this giant ball of steel in all its glory.

It’s so iconic, in fact, that the city turned it into a tourist mascot—Damper Baby. That’s right, they made the world’s largest steel ball cute. Only in Taiwan!

⚡ Cool Links

🏙 6 exciting city builders coming out before the end of 2024
Looking for a new city builder to lose yourself in before the year wraps up? Well, Citadelum lets you impress the gods... or face some divine demolition, while Worshippers of Cthulhu adds a nice touch of human sacrifice to your urban planning. And in Beyond These Stars? You’re building a city on a space whale. Yep, it’s that kind of year.

🤯 Production process of a LEGO figure
Ever wonder how LEGO minifigures are born? Tiny plastic people, precision-molded with more care than some real humans get! Check out the process in this video!

👀 Truss Me, I’m an Engineer T Shirt
Let everyone know you’ve got it all under control with my "Truss Me, I’m an Engineer" shirt! Now in full color, it’s the perfect way to show off your engineering pride—whether you're building bridges or just walking over them.

🏎 Somebody built a functional racetrack in Cities Skylines 2!
Someone built a working racetrack in Cities: Skylines 2—kind of! They used a business halfway down the track to lure visitors and a one-way road to force them to complete the lap. Add a mod to boost speed limits, and voilà, you’ve got a “racetrack” with some creative city planning!

🐕‍🦺 Paddy’s Corner

What's in the box Paddy?

Paddy, my trusty apprentice, takes on the ultimate engineering challenge: opening a cardboard box. Spoiler alert—it’s the best unboxing video you’ll see all year, paws down!

👾 Indie Game of the Week:

The devs really outdid themselves with Nodebuster.

In this experimental incremental game, your mission is to destroy nodes and, well, unravel reality itself. It’s all about smashing squares because, obviously, triangles are the true heroes of structural integrity.

If you're ready for some seriously addictive fun, check it out on Steam here!

Overwhelmingly positive reviews AND cheaper than a coffee? What more do you want!

It’s time for a Bridge Review!

Ah, the Golden Bridge—a footbridge that’s not just for walking, but for holding onto its own sense of grandeur. Literally. This 150-meter beauty is cradled by two giant stone hands, which is basically what happens when civil engineers let architects off the leash for five minutes. “Sure, we’ll design the structure, you just slap on something artsy... Wait, you’re adding giant hands?!” Classic architect move.

Pros:

• Epic views of the Ba Na Hills. If you don’t feel like you’re walking through the clouds, you’re doing it wrong.

• Those hands—Insta-famous for a reason. The bridge might just get more likes than your last engineering project.

Cons:

• It’s not actually gold. Talk about setting us up for disappointment. Thanks, architects!

• Being a pedestrian bridge means zero traffic jams... and zero chance to test its load-bearing greatness with a convoy of trucks. So it’s pretty, but is it practical?

Final Score: 8.7/10
Good for foot traffic and even better for your social media game. Let’s be honest, though—the engineers did the hard work, and the architects just threw in the hands for show!

🏗 r/realcivilengineer Spotlight

Thanks to u/TheRogueGoblin for posting about this very efficient road design.

🤔 Thoughts from an Engineer