One contest that we run with our high school students is the toothpick
tower.
Each team (or contestant) is given 25 toothpicks and 15
miniature marshmallows (no other materials allowed). The object of the
contest is to build a 1 toothpick tall (vertical) structure that will
support the greatest weight. The structure is tested by placing a
plastic graduated cylinder on top and slowly filling the graduated
cylinder with water until collapse (defined as the cylinder falling
over). We typically use a 100 mL cylinder and switch to a larger
cylinder if necessary. One structure held 1.8 L of water. Typically
the numbers are much less.
Attribution: This idea was stolen fair and square from the
Engineering Department of Virginia Tech.
THO
Thomas O'Neill
o'neill@csvrgs.k12.va.us
Physics
oneill@csvrgs.k12.va.us
C Shenandoah Valley R Governor's School 540.245.5088
-----Original Message-----
From: kyle forinash [mailto:kforinas@IUS.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 2:51 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Ideas?
Hi;
The local nonprofit business consortium here has an annual Da Vinci
festival (art + science). They called me and they want an idea for: A
competition (<10 teams probably- each from a local business)
involving science for adults. This should be relatively cheap, should
take less than a day to do. The activity they are going to do with
kids is going to be an egg drop type of competition (which team can
best design and execute a plan to protect an egg falling from a given
height). They want something a little more challenging for the adult
teams.
Anyone have a good idea for something like this?
kyle
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kyle forinash , PhD
kforinas@ius.edu 812-941-2390
Natural Science Division
Indiana University Southeast
New Albany, IN 47150 http://Physics.ius.edu/
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