Horace Greeley I.S. 10 Q Weekly Review (11/2/26)

Hi everyone! In this workshop at I.S. 10Q, students explored the basics of structural engineering through the Spaghetti Marshmallow Earthquake Tower Challenge. Each team had to build the tallest tower it could while keeping it stable enough to survive an “earthquake.” Before building, students learned how a wider base and triangular bracing help a structure resist tipping and leaning, using real examples like the Eiffel Tower. Teams also had to choose their materials carefully: they could use thick or thin spaghetti and large or small marshmallows, but each group had only a limited number of large marshmallows, which gave the most stability. That turned into the main challenge of the session, as students had to decide where their few large marshmallows mattered most and how to use the rest of their materials to keep the tower sturdy. At the end, we shook the tables holding each structure, and of the towers that stayed standing, the tallest one won. Through this activity, students saw firsthand the tradeoff between building tall and building stable, and how engineers design within resource constraints.