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Week 3: Tower Building (10/27/09) |
This week, we continued learning about civil/structural engineering with a tower building activity. Before we began, we finished up with last week's activity and tested the bridges. 3 of the bridges passed the test and could withstand the weight of a water bottle. We debriefed the bridge activity, talking about what worked and what the groups would do differently next time. Then we segued into this week's activity by discussing what other structures civil engineers could build, and almost immediately the students mentioned towers. We talked about how building towers is different than building bridges in that buildings have to be constructed to withstand forces such as wind, and towers can have support directly under them, unlike bridges. We also discussed center of gravity by showing that it is easier to push someone over when they are standing with their feet together than when they are standing with their feet apart. Lastly, we reviewed why triangles are the sturdiest shape. With that, we set off to build towers with toothpicks and Dots candy. The task was to build the tallest tower that could also hold a (very large) apple. Some of the towers were pretty tall, but none could hold the apple. Jay then built a short but sturdy tower (that could hold the apple) to demonstrate that taller isn't always better when building sturdy structures.
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