From the course: Universal Principles of Design
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Redundancy
- [Jill] Hi, I'm Jill Butler, and this is the Universal Principles of Design. In this movie, redundancy, or when failure is not an option. In 2001, I led a team commissioned to paint a cow for the Houston CowParade. CowParades are public art events that tour cities and get local artists to paint life-size fiberglass cow sculptures. After a period of public display, the cows are auctioned off for charity. We were commissioned to paint Supercow, and the commission came with a unique request. We were asked to not only create Supercow, but also engineer a solution to mount him on top of a 40-story tower crane in downtown Houston, to be displayed during hurricane season, no less. Of course, we accepted the challenge. This is a classic case of a design problem with many unknown parameters and dire consequences in the event of failure. This told us that we needed a high factor of safety. And, in this case, that meant redundancy. Lots of it. To keep Supercow intact, we fabricated a steel…
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