Science Olympiad Tower
This tower was 24 inches tall, 6 inches wide at the base, tapering to a 1 & 1/2 inch square at the middle. This tower weighed 7.0 grams, and held 11kg for 2nd place at the 2005 GA Science Olympiad State Finals.
I am in the middle of building a tower for my Science Olympiad competition this Saturday. In fact, I am truly in the middle. I am in the process of joining the two halves of my tower together, the bottom and top parts.I was asked
recently about the best way to go about this. I responded that I wasn’t quite sure. I have heard of people making jigs, but I can’t think of how to make a jig for this.
However, I think I have a way that at least works. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that you must build a tower on a level spot. Here is my setup:
On my desk (which isn’t level), I have a sheet of graph paper. On it I have 5 dots. 4 of the dots mark the outside points of the base of my tower. The 5th dot is the dead center of those other dots.
Because my desk isn’t level, I put a strip of wood under two legs of my tower to make it level. Only one dimension of my desk wasn’t level, so I fixed that by adding a piece of wood under two legs. And yes, I did use a small level to make sure that it was now perfect.
Now I know that the bottom the base of my tower is level. Now I need to make sure that the top of the base is level. So I placed my loading block (one I bought from Pitsco) on top of the base to see if it was already level. It wasn’t.
So I began sanding. A little bit here, and a little bit there. I didn’t just so this randomly, but using the level I tried to see what leg was making the tower un-level and sand that one. I ended up sanding a little too much, so I had to sand another leg. Finally, I have the base of my tower perfectly level. Now the trick is the actual connection of the top part, and making sure the top is level.
One of these days I will take pictures of this setup to connect the two parts to a Science Olympiad tower. If you know of a better way, please enlighten the rest of us.
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Hey BG
i am thinking about making one of these just for the fun of it i had a blast building my bridge and i was wondering if you could make a ‘5 steps to building a bridge tower version’
FT, thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely look into writing a tower ebook. It probably won’t be any time soon, however. I am staying pretty busy in school right now. It might be a Christmas break project.
GB i would not mind writing it if you just sent me some tips i could neaten it up in my writing classes at school as extra credit and i could find some info for you it would be fun.
This might help me a lot for my science fair project thanks
what year did you make the towers cause now were doing bridges? That is a truely amazing designe. Have you tryed the bridges yet? I have done both and the bridges are easier. Well i hopee you placed well with this tower.