This is Yuyu. She lives in Taipei, and she loves the tallest building in town: Taipei 101.
Yuyu has a secret to tell you. Near the very top of the tower, a giant golden ball is hanging. Let's call it Bao. What is it doing up there?
👆 Tap the glowing circles. Tap 📖 Read to me to hear the story. Press Next ▶ to keep reading, or jump straight to the game.
Taipei 101 is 508 meters tall. It has 101 floors above the ground, that's where its name comes from!
When it opened at the end of 2004, it was the tallest building in the world. 👆 Grow the buildings and compare.
📏 A house is about 10 m tall. You would need about 50 houses stacked up to reach the top of Taipei 101!Look at the shape. The middle of Taipei 101 is made of 8 big pieces, and each piece is 8 floors tall. It looks like a stalk of bamboo!
Bamboo grows tall, section by section, and bends in the wind without breaking. 👆 Build the tower piece by piece.
🍀 In Chinese, the number 8 sounds like getting rich and lucky. That's why the builders used 8 pieces of 8 floors.A tree has roots to hold it up. Taipei 101 has roots too! Under the tower are 380 long concrete posts called piles.
The ground in Taipei is soft, like mud. So the piles go down about 80 meters, all the way into hard rock. 👆 Look underground.
⬇️ 80 meters is about as tall as a 25-floor building, but pointing down into the ground!Wind pushes on tall buildings. A tall building is made to bend a tiny bit, like a tree, instead of cracking.
But when the top wobbles back and forth, people up there can feel dizzy, and drinks slosh around. 👆 Blow some wind and watch the bubble tea!
🌳 Bending a little is normal and safe. It's the wobbling that we want to stop. Who can help?
Here it is: Bao, the big gold ball! It hangs from the 92nd floor on 8 thick steel cables, and you can visit it on the observation floors.
Bao is a wind damper. "Damper" means something that makes shaking smaller. 👆 Tap around the room.
🐘 Bao weighs 660 tonnes, more than 100 elephants! It is about 5.5 m wide and made of 41 thick steel plates stacked up like pancakes.Here's Bao's trick. When the wind pushes the tower one way, Bao swings the other way, and pulls the tower back!
Tower goes right, Bao goes left. Tower goes left, Bao goes right. Together they make the wobble much smaller. 👆 Watch two towers in the same wind.
📉 Bao can make the tower's wobble up to about 40% smaller. It's like a friend holding the other end of a swing.Under Bao are 8 big shock absorbers, like giant squishy brakes. They are full of thick oil.
When Bao swings, they squeeze and slow it down, so the swinging turns into a little bit of warmth. 👆 Push Bao with the shock absorbers on and off.
⭕ A steel ring around Bao is a bumper. If Bao swings too far, about 1.5 m, the ring stops it.
Taiwan gets typhoons, giant spinning storms with strong wind. That's when Bao works the hardest!
On August 8, 2015, Typhoon Soudelor blew hard on Taipei. Bao swung about 1 meter, its biggest swing ever recorded. 👆 Tap around the storm.
🎥 During big storms and earthquakes, people love to watch videos of Bao swinging. Its job is to swing, so the tower doesn't have to!Taiwan also has many earthquakes. The ground is made of giant pieces called plates, and under Taiwan two plates push together.
The pushing lifts up Taiwan's tall mountains, and sometimes the ground jumps and shakes. 👆 Push the plates.
💪 On April 3, 2024, Taiwan had its strongest earthquake in 25 years. Taipei 101 was fine! It was built to bend and to stay standing.To visit Bao, you ride one of the fastest elevators in the world. It zooms from the 5th floor to the 89th floor in just 37 seconds!
At top speed it goes about 60 km/h, as fast as a car. 👆 Ride up and count along.
👂 Going up fast can make your ears feel funny, so the elevator gently changes the air inside to help your ears.
Every New Year's Eve, Yuyu and her dad climb a little hill to watch. At midnight, fireworks shoot out from the sides of Taipei 101!
And way up inside, Bao is hanging quietly, ready for the next windy day. 👆 Count down to the new year!
🎆 People all over Taiwan watch the Taipei 101 fireworks on TV. The show lasts for a few minutes, floor by floor.Taipei 101 is 508 m tall, shaped like bamboo, with deep roots in the rock. Near its top hangs Bao, a 660-tonne golden ball that swings the other way when wind or earthquakes push the tower, making the wobble smaller.
🧠 Quick Quiz!