A Tall Order

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Megan Oliver has suggested that the teams build "sky scrapers." This is a good idea, but would be dangerous with junkyard materials. The challenge could be modified to build sort of blocks of not more than 4 ft X 4 ft square,round, or triangular and 4 to 15 ft tall which would fit together in a way that they would stack up, each directly above the one below.(The taller "blocks" could be built lying down for safety and speed of assembly.) That way, each unit would not be dangerous to build. For the competetion, a crane and tall bucket truck could be used to stack the blocks until either one teams blocks collapse, or if both towers stay together, then the tallest stack would win. It would be a ten hour weldathon, and would require that each team find strong materials and use them wisely, and also make the "blocks" fit together, and stack up straight. It would end up being more of a tower than a building, but would represent well the principles of structural engineering, and show off the teams scrounging and building skills. Each team could even split up to work on two "blocks" at a time, so that they could make more "blocks" faster, an efficiency of motion example for the chalk board. Good suggestion, Megan.

-- Waddy Thompson (cthomp3851@aol.com), March 16, 2001

Answers

Another way to pick a winner (provided both towers don't fall from their own weight, and are about the same heigth,) would be to string a rope between the two towers at some level, and pull straight down in the center of the rope (fill a bag with water in the center, or pull down with a rope and pulley connected to the ground). The first tower to fall would lose. This way, there would be a tension builder and a good crash to end the competetion.

-- Waddy Thompson (cthomp3851@aol.com), March 16, 2001.

A race to build more blocks? I enjoy seeing creative and unique solutions to various challenges... watching a team build X number of the same thing... not much excitement there.

cheers,

-- Maxel (Maxel@inwindsor.com), March 16, 2001.


Maxwell, you haven't seen the scrapyard. It's not like there would be tons of uniform structural material that would lend itself to an assembly line operation. Each block would be of materials of different origin, some from pipe, some from auto frame, some from whatever else is available. The more massive ones would be used on the bottom, and the top end could look like tower sections, or even a single big pipe with a plate or frame at each end, as long as it is built to not exceed the specified size for each block, and will mate up with the one above and below. Part of the challenge would be to see which teams ingenuity would turn out the tallest and sturdiest structure. There would be a lot of competetion to get the best materials as well, allowing another strategy decision, about how long to spend getting material. The question would be, how much material to gather before starting the assembly, as the team beginning with the best pile of materials would have an advantage, but have less time to assemble them. With materials from the yard, it would take a lot of thinking to figure out how to best assemble them for the task.

-- Waddy Thompson (cthomp3851@aol.com), March 16, 2001.

Ohhhhhh yea... Seeing the teams scrounge around to find cinder blocks and stacking them up on each other. Sound like the ratings would go strait through the ground. Why not just sit around drinking tea and hope that the ratings are better if you would build SKYSCRAPERS! Sounds like a plan to me!

-- Danny McIntyre (aceflyer419@aol.com), January 22, 2002.

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