Spaghetti and Marshmallow towers

Did you know that some shapes are much stronger than others in a building?

The clever builders who made the pyramids knew this and maybe that's why the pyramids are still standing.

In our class this week I set the clever Kea learners the challenge of building a structure using two non-traditional building materials. The aim was to build either the highest, or strongest structure using only uncooked spaghetti sticks and mini marshmallows. Mr Buckingham acted as our judge and the teams used a 200g vitamin container as a strength tester.

I also had a go at making a tower with some success.

We all did some shared research into which shapes would be strongest and we found that putting lots of triangles into our buildings made them stronger. Here are some pictures of our buildings starting with Mr Gunn's.