Thoreau House

This summer my brother and I worked on a replica reconstruction of Henry David Thoreau's famous Walden Pond cabin.

Although we spent much of our time trying to stay true to Thoreau's original, we were forced to build on a rather steep graded site. Thoreau's original foundation was laid of brick, but because of our hill site, we decided to put the cabin up on cedar posts.

Here's where the interesting problem comes in, The cedar posts (all of Diameter~ 7.5in) are of vastly different heights because of the placement on a hill (and the need for a level cabin). But they are all also under the same load, so if I cut them to be level, and they deform different amounts, this will cause my cabin to no longer be level.

So the main question I pose is: can we calculate the amount that we should change the height of the posts to make the loaded system level?

Materials: Fallen tree, shingles

Collaborators: Jasper Sieniewicz (Brother)