Straws, string and tape were all the materials that students at Birch Lane Elementary School needed to create a structure that could hold a bucket full of pennies.
Fifth-graders in Lauren Marocchi’s and Jeanne Brustmeyer’s classes recently built bucket towers, a STEM project that tested their engineering skills. Each group could use up to 20 straws to make a structure to dangle a plastic cup from. They then added pennies to the cup, one by one, to see how strong their creations were.
Before the building began, each student drew their own sketch of a bucket tower, then worked in teams to choose the best design. The teachers noted the variety of ideas and were impressed with how well many of the structures held up, with some cups able to hold more than 160 pennies.
