The Strongest Strongholds
Students work together in small groups, while competing with other teams, to explore the engineering design process through a tower building challenge. They are given a set of design constraints and then conduct online research to learn basic tower-building concepts. During a two-day process and using only tape and plastic drinking straws, teams design and build the strongest possible structure. They refine their designs, incorporating information learned from testing and competing teams, to create stronger straw towers using fewer resources (fewer straws). They calculate strength-to-weight ratios to determine the winning design.
Students test the strength of a tower made from straws and tape.Copyright 2015 Denise Jabusch, University of California Davis
Engineers refine and improve designs to best meet specified constraints. Before carrying out large and/or expensive projects, engineers often create models to explore how well their structures or designs will perform. Civil engineers often bid for projects against competitor engineering teams, with the goal to provide higher quality structures at lower costs in a given amount of time. During this activity, students work in teams, competing against other teams, to design, build and refine towers of a minimum height in a given amount of time. The winning tower design is the one that uses the fewest resources while holding the greatest amount of weight.
After this activity students should be able to:
- Explain why towers with a higher strength-to-weight ratio are better.
- Explain the steps of the engineering design process and how following it guides us to make design improvements.