1. Building Marshmallow Towers
Let’s Give It A Try!
Building Marshmallow Towers

2. Building Marshmallow Towers
Build the tallest Tower that can hold a tennis ball for at least 5 seconds.
Materials
Spaghetti noodles
Tooth picks
Big-Marshmallows
Ruler
Paper for drafting plan
Newspaper (for desk coverage)

3. Building Marshmallow Towers: Round 1
Form Teams of 4 or 5 persons
Draw your idea on paper (5 min)
Build it with team (8 min)
Test your tower (2 min)
Continuous Improvement (Build it again – only better!) (5 min)
If the tower stands for more than 30 seconds (min requirement), Stress it by adding washers or other weight.

4. Building Marshmallow Towers: Round 1: Within-team discussion
Take a few minutes to talk with your team:
What worked within your team?
What didn’t work for your team?
Do you think that if you had another try at this you could use your learnings and make a better tower?

5. Design Considerations
Tallest tower
Strongest tower
Strongest and Tallest

6. Lets take a few minutes and try to get some ideas from other structures…. Can they improve our Marshmallow Towers?

7. Great Pyramid of Giza Built 2560 BC
Tallest man-made structure for over 3,800 years
Oldest structure in the world? Maltese Temples 3600 BC. Not quite as tall.
The Great Pyramid of Giza (also called the Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt, and in a historical irony is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one that survives substantially intact. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops in Greek) and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2551 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years. Originally the Great Pyramid was covered by casing stones that formed a smooth outer surface, but what is seen today is mainly only the underlying core structure, with a few of the original casing stones that once covered the structure simply representing the four compass points around the base. There have been varying scientific and alternative theories regarding the Great Pyramid's construction techniques. Most accepted construction theories are based on the idea that it was built by moving huge stones from a quarry and dragging and lifting them into place.
There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest chamber is cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built and was unfinished. The so-called[1] Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber are higher up within the pyramid structure. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the main part of a complex setting of buildings that included two mortuary temples in honor of Khufu (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile), three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives, an even smaller "satellite" pyramid, a raised causeway connecting the two temples, and small mastaba tombs surrounding the pyramid for nobles.

8. Eiffel Tower in Paris, France
Building started in 1887 and finished in 1889
81 stories high building.
Fifty engineers and designers produced 5,300 drawings to make tower
Fifty engineers and designers produced 5,300 drawings, and over 100 workers built more than 18,000 different parts of the tower in a workshop.
Fun & Interesting Facts About Eiffel Tower 
Eiffel Tower has been named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel.
Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris.
The height of Eiffel Tower, including its 24 m (79 ft) antenna, is 324 m.
The height of Eiffel Tower is equivalent to 81 levels in a conventional building.
The construction work of Eiffel Tower started on January 26, 1887 and was completed on March 31, 1889.
Till 1930, Eiffel Tower was the tallest building in the whole world.
The metal structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes, while the entire structure, including non-metal parts, weighs around 10,100 tonnes.
Eiffel Tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889.
2,500,000 rivets and 18,038 iron parts make up the Eiffel Tower.
In 1889, the cost of construction of the Eiffel Tower was around 7,799, French gold francs.
The four pillars of the Eiffel Tower stand in a square that measures 125 meters on each side.
The 1st floor of Eiffel Tower stands at a height of 57 m, while the 2nd and 3rd floor are 115 m and 276 m high, respectively.
One can visit the different floors of the monument via elevators.
Strong winds can sway Eiffel Tower slightly. During the storm of 1999, it moved approximately 13 centimeters from its initial position.
Eiffel Tower hosted the first French radiophonic experiments and also played a crucial role in the inception of French television.
Eiffel Tower is home to dozens of antennas, of all sorts, including a television mast that is 324 meters high.
Le Figaro sets up a printing press on the second floor of Eiffel Tower in Till date, the paper is published on site and visitors who buy it can have their name inscribed on their copy.
Eiffel Tower is painted every 7 years. It gets covered in 3 shades of brown, with the darkest one at the bottom.
The 19th painting of Eiffel Tower is scheduled to begin in autumn 2008
Approximately 60 tons of paint and a time period of 15 to 18 months is required to paint the Eiffel Tower.
On a clear day, one can see up to 42 miles away, from the top of Eiffel Tower.
The base of Eiffel Tower is spread over an area of 100 square meters.
The Eiffel Tower is open 365 days a year.
4 tons of dusters & cleaning cloths, 10,000 doses of cleaning items, 400 liters of detergents and 25,000 bin bags are needed to clean Eiffel Tower.
Eiffel Tower has two restaurants, on the first and second platforms, named Altitude and Jules Verne.
Till 2003, over 200 million people had visited the Eiffel Tower, since its inception.
Eiffel Tower was initially intended to be dismantled and sold as scrap 20 years after its construction, but this never happened.
The sides of Eiffel Tower, just beneath the first platform, have been affixed with named of 72 prominent French scientists and famous personalities.
Wheelchair-bound people can visit the Eiffel Tower up to the second level, using the elevator.

9. Bridges Can you see something similar to the previous examples?
Triangles inherently strong

10. Building Marshmallow Towers: Round 2
Draw your idea on paper (5 min)
Build it with team (8 min)
Test your tower (2 min)
Continuous Improvement (Build it again – only better!) (5 min)
If the tower stands for more than 30 seconds (min requirement), Stress it by adding washers or other weight.

11. Building Marshmallow Towers: Round 2: Within-team discussion
Lets discuss your experiences
What worked within your team?
What didn’t work for your team?
Lets review how this exercise is an example of scientific inquiry

12. Building Marshmallow Towers: Round 2: Between-team discussion
Lets see if other teams had the same thoughts about their approaches to building the marshmallow tower
What worked within your team?
What didn’t work for your team?
Do you think that if you had another try at this you could use your learnings and make a better tower?

13. MARSHMALLOW TOWER Food for Thought
How high did building your marshmallow tower go? Measure it with your ruler to find out high you built or put your structure to the test by putting the pre-selected mass test units on top of it to see if it will support them.
What shapes did you make with your marsh-mallows and spaghetti to create a sturdy tower?
What could you do to build a higher/stronger marshmallow tower? What would happen if you used different sized marshmallows? How about if you built a wider base or narrower base?
Be sure to predict what you think is going to happen. Then test your question.
Are marshmallows good building materials?
What other materials can you use to build a tower?
Try building a tower using clay and straws or toothpicks and peas.

14. Other Curriculum Ideas
Math lesson-calculate costs, measurement
Social Studies-Architecture in different regions/parts of the world
ELA-journaling, story writing
Research-structures

15. Questions?