Tallest Tower Activity
Building is fun — and a little competition makes it even more fun!
Tallest Tower activities are being used to encourage teambuilding in schools and organizations. They are even being used to research human behavior! Check out this Ted Talk.
Getting Started
Decide if you want to build towers individually or in small groups.
What You'll Need (For Each Person or Team)
The Rules
- You can only use the materials you have to build the tallest tower you can.
- You have 15 minutes to build your tower.
- After 10 minutes, you will be given extra marshmallows.
- There will be a 2-minute warning before the activity ends.
- Measure each tower to see which is the tallest!
Variations in the Rules
- Build the Tallest Tower that can hold a load, such as a golf ball or a marshmallow, depending on the materials.
- Work to build the tallest tower in teams — without talking!
- No tape can be used to secure the structure to a surface.
Variations in the Materials
- 50 plastic straws and a roll of masking tape
- 50 small plastic or paper cups
- 50 plastic straws, 50 pipe cleaners, and 25 paper clips
- 2-3 newspapers, a roll of masking tape, and some straws
- 3 paper towel rolls, 5 sheets of paper, 2 pencils, and 6 paper clips
- Cut-up pieces of fruit and 25 toothpicks
Measuring Outside the Box
Sometimes you don't need a ruler to know which object is tallest.
You can use pretty much any object to measure any other object — crackers, crayons, LEGOS, shoes, anything! This way of measuring isn't precise but it's often close enough to count.
It works really well for comparisons. If one object is two crackers long, and the other is three crackers long, you know immediately the second one is longer.
Here's another example. You know the paper you use for school is 8.5 x 11 inches long. In a pinch, you can use paper to estimate how long something is. If your forearm is a little longer than the width of the paper, it's going to be about 9 inches long. How about your foot? Your shin?
A credit card is another way to guess how long something is. A standard card is slightly less than 3.5 inches long and 2 inches wide. If the length of your pinky finger is roughly the width of a credit card, then you know it's 2 inches long.
There are countless items you can use to measure things — string, 1-inch unifix blocks, 1-inch paper clips. Measuring is way more fun when you mix it up!
These activities were created by Janet Ulwick-Sacca for Great Expectations.
