Straw Tower - Heather D

     When I started working thinking about my straw tower, I decided I was going to use a triangular design.  This would lessen the straws needed because I would only have three sides instead of four.  I started by using slip joints and attaching three straws together to make the height.  (I made three of these.)  I then decided to make the braces at the top of the tower which is where I would put the marbles.  It did not need to be big because I only had 7 marbles.  I'd come back and make the platform later.  I started at the top, so that if I ran out of time, I could pull a straw off the bottom and make it shorter, but would have my platform more or less ready for the marbles.  I then went and put braces lower.  If I had time, I would put cross braces to strengthen the structure, but felt it would be okay for marbles without.  In the end, I was able to put the supports, but not the cross braces.
      As time ran out, I used the extra pieces of the straws to make a platform and side railings for the marbles to sit on and stay inside at the top of my structure.  We loaded it up with marbles, and it sat there until the end of class.  I was even able to put 3 more marbles in it, but ran out of room for anything else.  I did attempt to put a book on top of it, but it started to fall, so I took the book off.  It was bending at the bottom where the straw was bendy.  In hindsight, had I taped up those parts - or cut them off, the structure would have been more rigid.

Had I had more time, I would have done more measuring and more math.  The only thing I measured was the length of the straw pieces that went horizontally to form the braces.  I made sure the three at "the same height" were the same length.  However, I did not measure the height.  This would have helped keep things more structurally sound.  As well, I should have used similar figures to decide how long to make them.  Instead, I just decided to cut them based on a guess.  The bottom ones were the straws with the bendy part cut off.  The top ones were 1.5 inches,  the next ones down were 3 inches I think and the third row down were 5 inches (I think)

     As for the score, I had 12 unused straws, and the bottom of the marbles was at a height of 20 inches, and I'll only count the 7 marbles, because that is what we were given.  This gave me a score of 12 x (20-5)^7.  or 12 x 15^7.

So, my score is 2,050,312,500  Yahoo!!

   I thought this was a great activity, however I felt a little bit of anxiety.  I am a person who wants to do something right and the best way possible, and realized that I did not automatically know the best way to do it.  I realized this reminds me of some of the feelings my students get when they are asked to do things.  However, I finally decided to just dive in and go because it was more about the experience and the effort than the end result - really.  However, I still wanted to get the best score.