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Experiment 21 v4
- Experiment 22 >
Making lolly stick towers
Can you make a lolly stick tower as tall as you are?
Purpose
This experiment gives children an opportunity to practise measuring.
The child will learn how to build a stable tower from lolly sticks.
You need to know
- how to measure your height
You will need
Steps
- Gather the equipment you need for this experiment.
- Measure your height.
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Plan how to build a lolly stick tower with these restrictions:
- It should be as tall as you are
- It should be stable and strong enough to stand on its own
- It must not be fixed to the surface it stands on
- You can only use lolly sticks and all-purpose white glue
- The total length of all the lolly sticks, if laid end to end, must be less than five times your height
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Create your lolly stick tower.
Hint
You can buy clean lolly sticks in bulk from art and craft shops if you don't have lots of used ones at home.
Questions
- What is the maximum number of lolly sticks you were allowed to use? (Show your working.)
- How many lolly sticks did you use in your tower?
- How did you make sure the tower was stable?
Expected answers
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This will depend on the height of the child. It should be five times the child's height divided by the length of each lolly stick.
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Simply count the sticks. This should be less than the answer to the previous question.
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Since the tower is not to be attached to any external base it's important that its own base is wide enough to support the whole structure.
Explore further (optional)
After creating your first tower, why not create another that is patterned to a world landmark, a skyscraper, or even the Eiffel Tower?
Tips for further exploration
The most interesting way to proceed would be to find a tower design that's very different from the first one, and build that.
