Spaghetti Tower Building Challenge

STEM Sorority’s first activity was a spaghetti tower building challenge that helped members get to know each other better while also practicing their engineering and creativity skills. Members worked in groups of two or three using nothing but raw spaghetti and masking tape to create a carbohydrate skyscraper. The towers had to hold a 100 gram mass above 30 cm while surviving an “earthquake” simulated by a shake table. The team that used the least amount of spaghetti won. Here are some photos of members hard at work on their towers:

After two meetings during Flex times on Jan 15 and 22 spent constructing, it was time for each group to test their towers. Each structure was unique and different in its own way. Some were thick and solid looking, while other teams chose to have lighter, skinnier frames. Some towers started collapsing under their own weight and didn’t even make it to the shake table testing.

To see which spaghetti tower was the strongest, the shake table was stretched to incrementally longer distances (5cm, 10cm, 15cm); the longer the distance, the more aggressive the shaking. The shake table was stretched more and more until the last tower had fallen. Here is a before and after of one of the towers:

Congratulations to Katya, Julia, Alanna, Jacqueline and Anika for having the sturdiest tower!!