Toothpick and Marshmallow Tower

How tall can you make your tower?

You will be making a tower that is made of toothpicks and marshmallows (and you can get help from a parent or a friend too). Try to make a tower that is as tall as you!

Materials

Some of these materials are yummy!

1 bag of small marshmallows

1 bag of toothpicks (or cup)

Steps

1. You get 20 toothpicks and 25 marshmallows

2. You will have 20 minutes to make a tower as big as you can with only these materials, can you do it?

3. Ask a parent or another friend to watch and tell you when your time is up

Conclusion

Time to eat leftovers!

This experiment is very similar to the paper bridge experiment we have listed on our website as well. However, instead of trying to distribute pennies over a wide area, you are trying to distribute all the weight on the top of the tower along a wide base (the bottom of your tower).

Some hints

Try to look at real towers to get some inspiration for the marshmallow tower you are about to build. How do you thing real engineers did it? To begin, try to make a wide base such as a square with 4 of your marshmallows. Connect them with 4 toothpicks to start off our tower. As you build your tower, start to make the higher parts of your tower thinner and thinner until you finally have 1 marshmallow at the top so you can save your marshmallows and toothpicks. (Make it look like the Eiffel tower!)