http://engineering4kids.wikispaces.com/Spaghetti+tower
Today we made Spaghetti Towers.
We talked a bit about towers and structures. Triangles were stronger than squares.
Materials – We did the simplified version. Each team of 2-3 got
- 15 pieces of uncooked spaghetti and
- 30 mini marshmallows.
The spaghetti could be broken into pieces. New full length spaghetti was available if the first ones were broken into smaller pieces that weren’t useable – total length of spaghetti remained about the same.
They had 18 minutes to build the tallest free-standing tower possible.
First round – 1 team of 3, 3 teams of 2 – everyone in grades 2-5. Most kids ended up working on their own. Some attempt to combine structures.
- Highest free-standing tower was 11 inches
- 3 other shorter towers, only one was “stable.”
Second round – individual kids built towers with spaghetti and marshmallows – started with 3 spaghetti and 10-12 marshmallows, and they could have more if they were constructing a serious tower.
- Tallest tower 22 inches but probably used more than 15 pieces of spaghetti.
Talked about the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty – lots of similarities.
Everyone had a lovely time.
Next time
– work on team work, engineering design process
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