Tower of Power

2018 Results: Click here to see the results of the 2018 Middle School Competition! 

2018 Photo Gallery

Celebrate National Engineers Week with Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering

A Tower of Power in a Half Hour

A Middle School National Engineering Week Challenge

Join Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering in celebrating National Engineers Week (February 18-24, 2018) by building a tower from spaghetti and marshmallows. The top three middle school teams that build the tallest freestanding tower wins and will be invited to recreate their winning towers at the JHU Tower of Power event on February 20, 2018!

Participate in next year’s event by joining our mailing list.

Specifics:

  • Towers are to be built by a team of students (3 students max) using only one (1) 1 pound box of spaghetti and 2 bags of large marshmallows (30/bag).
  • The construction time limit is a half hour.
  • Towers must be freestanding.
  • Multiple teams may compete within each school, but each middle school may submit only one winning entry to JHU.  An entry consists of two items:
    • A digital photograph of the team and its tower
    • A teacher-verified height (in cm)
  • The top 5 winning teams across all schools will be invited to JHU’s Tower of Power competition to build their towers again and compete with undergraduate students, alumni, and faculty teams (optional).

Entries must be submitted by February 9, 2018.

Prizes:

  • Each middle school entry will receive a certificate signed by the Assistant Dean for Engineering Educational Outreach.
  • The winning entries will receive prizes (to be determined) and be recognized on the JHU Center for Educational Outreach website.

Hints:  Triangles are rigid.  Structures using triangles tend to be strong.  Note all the triangular trusses in the picture.  Long lengths of spaghetti will bend.  It’s probably better to have several short sections rather than one long section.

Experiment! Design! Build!

If you intend to participate, have questions, or need to submit photo consent forms, contact Erin Burk at STEMOutreachjhu@gmail.com or call 410-516-5785.

Click here to enter your school’s winning team in the competition. 

2018 Tower of Power Information Sheet.

 

Hub article: Engineers Week 2017 Homewood Campus Competition

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