Aims
Make a tower from spaghetti and marshmallows.
ExpeRiment with the construction of your tower to find out whichshapes are best for building with.
Learn why some shapes are more stable than others when you build a tower.
About this activity
Building towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows is a great way to encourage children to think like engineers. Aoife McLysaght does this simple, easy and cheap science activity at home with her children. By creating structures out of these cheap kitchen materials, Alice and Lorenzo start to think about the properties of objects, the factors that contribute to stability, and the importance of testing things out. A good structure must be stiff and strong, able to take a lot of force before it collapses. Different shapes have different strengths and weaknesses. Experimenting with squares, triangles and other shapes is a great starting point for thinking about the process of building things like houses and bridges.