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On top of my tower, I tried to hold the weight of random items I found in my roommate’s cupboard. It was able to hold two cans of green beans, each weighing 14.5. It also held garlic and onion powder, which weighed 2.6 and 2.3 ounces respectively. This adds up to a total of only 33.9 ounces.

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I think the EDP is shaped like a circle because the process has the opportunity to be cyclical. This means that engineers c an repeat the steps as many times as needed, and they can revise and make improvements. It is also an iterative process, not a linear one. The process is a series of steps used to find the solution to a problem. Each step in the circle is like a gear that helps to turn all the others. In the end, all the gears work together to find the solution.

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My design this week improved a lot from last week. Last week, my tower wasn't able to hold my stuffed animal for the 10 seconds. This week I used a total of 36 index cards, and all the tape once again. My tower was also tall enough again. I used 4 index cards and folded them in half to make each of the box like structures in my tower. I made my base wider than the top of my tower, whereas last time it was all the same width. I think this helped with holding the weight. I made 4 levels (the first two are the same) and the 3rd has 3 cards rolled into cylinder shapes. I did this to help with the height requirement, and I was getting low on tape and did not have enough to make 3 more squares. In between each layer I laid a few cards flat on top to provide a base for the next layers to stand on. Last time I only used cylinder shapes until the top of my tower which made it too tall and flimsy. This time, my tower was successful in holding the granola bar for as long as it needed to (it was a little over 2 ounces in weight). I am not sure if it would have been able to hold much more weight than this, however I definitely improved a lot considering my first tower held nothing. Using more square shapes instead of so many cylinders this time really help with the sturdiness.

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My design improved a lot from last week to this week. Last week, I was struggling because my index cards were super thin, making them not very sturdy. It took me many tries to figure out a design that would hold my stuffed animal. To make my tower more sturdy this week, I taped 3-4 index cards together in a stack and continued to do that with the rest of my index cards. I then used these thicker stacks of index cards (rather than 1 flimsy index card) and built my tower. It only took me one try to create a tower that was sturdy enough to hold a can of soup. Each can of soup is 10.5 ounces, so in total, my tower held 31.5 ounces.

I think the Engineering Design Process is shaped like a circle because it shows that the process isn’t linear. You don’t go right from point A to point B. Throughout the different steps, you might come across new information that will redirect your process, or you might make a mistake and have to go back a few steps. This process is repetitive, and failure is a part of it. It is about testing, failing, and designing, over and over, until the product is exactly how the researcher wants it.

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The engineering design process is shown as a circle because solutions to problems are always improved on and evolving. If it was a procedure and not a cyclical then it would be assumed that when someone got to the end of the procedure it was done and over. I used a triangle method this time instead of a column technique. I put 3 cards inside one another and taped them together to create sturdy triangles and did 4 on each layer separated by 2 cards. It ended up pretty sturdy. It held a candle that was 434g.

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I accidentally did not read the instructions correctly and crumbled up the cylinder flash cards and threw them away after taking this picture. I will take a video explaining what I did though! I am sorry!!

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Megan Giordano Video Explanation of Tower #2!

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Megan Giordano Video Explanation of Tower #2!

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Megan Giordano Verbal Response to Questions!

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Megan Giordano Verbal Response to Questions!

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Hi! I think your tower is super impressive. I am shocked any amount of flashcards could hold up so much weight!!! I think the shape of your tower in genius and how you folded the cards and placed them was very strategic and a smart way to hold the distribution of so much weight. I would have never thought of the "z" shapes with the index cards, I can tell that you thought hard about how you wanted to best build this tower. It makes me wish I had tried a different shape with the actual index cards rather than just changing the shape of the tower itself. Good job!!

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Hi Holly! Good job with your tower, I am happy that you got more weight to hold than last time. I actually had the same idea to create a tower with a wider base and a more narrow top in order to create a more stable and sturdy structure. I think we both had the right idea because both of our towers held more weight and look sturdier as well. I like how you counted how many flashcards you used. I am not sure how many I used, but I know I used less circular cards this time around than last time. Great job!

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Hi Emily! I am so impressed with how much weight your structure could hold. I think your structure is very interesting and I am not entirely sure how you pulled it off. How many flashcards did you end up using? And how long did that take you? It looks super sturdy and I am wondering if there are any flashcards within the structure and, if so, how did you place them? Awesome job!

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Hi Megan! I love your tower and how different it is from mine! I think that it's awesome that you mention you did multiple trials and had some "failures" that resulted in a tower that can hold a pepper shaker. It is so cool that you made a hexagon shape. I would have never thought of that idea in a million years. Not only is it visually appealing but it is also supportive! - Arianna Irizarry

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Hi Emily! Your tower is so cool and different. I look at everyone's design's here and they are all extremely different from one another. It's so amazing to me since we were all given the same prompt, same resources, but we all have a different mindset to figure out how we want to build our tower. I just think it's so cool. I like how you talked about not taking straight steps to get to the answer. There's not a correct route for anyone to take to get to this point and they don't have to look the same, but through trial and error, one can get their ideal final tower.

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Your tower kind of looks like my tower in a way. I kind of had mine in a "Z" shape pattern with multiple layers. But instead mine was a triangle shape with three index cards. I love how you re-thought about your process and what you needed to do in order to make it better and sturdier. I always learned that triangles were the best support for any building and/or structure. I love it and I love how you were able to put so much on it!

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I think that the EDP is shaped in a circle because it is an ever-going trial. There is always something that you can work on and on top of that it can go in every which way. The EDP helps students think in a critical way and in a way that pushes them to always pursue learning. The process is never-ending.

My tower was similar to my tower last week. However, I made it a much stronger and thicker base to hold these canned goods. I bent three cards in the shape of the triangle, but I then put them in each other so they were super tight and sturdy. I put 4 of those triangles as the base and then 5 flat flashcards as a buffer. I repeated this 4 times to make it 13 inches. I was very lucky that it didn't fall the first time. I added one can every time to make sure it held it. I eventually put four cans on the top of my tower. These cans were 15.5 ounces, meaning I had 62 ounces or 3.875 pounds on the tower. I was also surprised I didn't use any tape (because I didn't have any) or scissors to make this tower stand tall and strong. This activity can be used within any classroom with whatever type of supplies the teacher or classroom has.

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Hi Arianna, I love your tower and how it was able to hold so much weight! I also used triangles but in a slightly different way, making it a lot less sturdy to hold only about half the weight as yours. It's interesting how some towers weren't able to hold anything, while others, like yours, could hold so much, and we all started initially with the same resources. That shows that the EDP is flexible and can work in many ways through multiple attempts. -Angelina Sangiovanni

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Hi Megan! Your tower is so cool! I like how you used hexagons, which is something I honestly didn't even think of trying. I also like how you mentioned that this time you had to rebuild your tower multiple times. I agree that this time required a lot more reflecting, and I noticed that trying to put heavier things on top was motivation to truly take time to consider what was going to keep it strong enough. I think making students take time to reflect on their own work is a very important skill that comes from this experiment -Angelina Sangiovanni

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Hi Holly! I like how your tower uses a few different shapes to support the weight of the granola bar. I also used columns last week for my tower but had to switch to a different shape in order to help with its sturdiness. I'm glad your tower was able to hold more weight than last week. Your reflection of what was holding you back last week was important to see how you can improve. I think that's the most important part of the EDP, allowing students to reflect on what their first trial "failed" at and be able to make improvements to better their design. Great job! -Angelina Sangiovanni

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Hi Arianna! Your tower and mine actually have a lot of similarities in regards to shapes and structure. I also started off with creating a thicker base like you did. I also bent my cards, and made 3-d square shapes to include in the layers of my structure. However, I did use tape (all of it) because I felt that it would make my square shapes more sturdy, but it probably did not make much of a difference. The difference between our two towers is that I also had one layer of cylinders and mine was overall in the shape of a pyramid. Your overall shape seems to be a thick cylinder. Yours is the same width from top to bottom as where mine got skinner as it got higher. I think yours was more successful than mine because it was the same width from top to bottom and because you continued the pattern of only squares all the way up. Overall amazing job! Yours held so much weight! - Holly Montick

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Hi Megan! I also built more out than up this time. Last time, my tower was too tall, skinny, and flimsy. I think having the hexagon as your base was an amazing idea! I used cubes, but having an additional 2 sides in the hexagon probably helped you to hold more weight. I tried cylinders for my first tower and it didn't work too well, so it makes me feel better to know that even though my last tower didn't work, that cylindrical shapes still have the potential to work if your configure them differently just as you did. I also like how for the EDP question you mentioned that the most learning happens from failing and I completely agree! This was what happened to me from my first tower to my second one! - Holly Montick

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Hi Emily! What a great idea to stack multiple cards together to make them thicker! I didn't even think of that! I remember the other day you were telling me that you wish they made thicker note cards that you could buy. But I loved how you stuck with the flimsy ones and thought of an idea to make them work. I also agree with you that the EDP is not linear. And I like how you mentioned that it does not simply go from point A to point B. Sometimes cyclical processes lead you to point C before point B, which in turn can often be beneficial. - Holly Montick

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I think EDP is shaped like a circle because science isn't something you can always just get from point a to b. Sometimes it requires more thinking. I also think it could mean the opposite in a way; meaning your thinking always comes back around in the end.

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I improved my design this week by making it more stable. Instead of using cylinders, I used multiple index cards folded together. I thought the cylinders wouldn't be strong enough to hold something heavier than a stuffed animal. I decided that in order to make it taller, I would definitely need something sturdier, hence my decision to make something different. I made 4 different rows of stacked together cards. I made sure they were close together in order to distribute the weight properly. I used regular index cards between rows as a base just like I did last week.

I ended up getting my tower to hold 16.5 ounces. Although, I think it could have held more. I just only had three boxes of mac and cheese.

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I think the EDP is shaped like a circle to represent that the process is cyclical. This means that engineers may have to repeat the process as many times as they need to until it works. Also, there are always improvements that can be made.
For my tower, I used the same concept as my last tower because it worked so well. To improve my design, I added more rectangled shaped flashcards so that there would be more stability. I also added more flashcards in between rows because I thought maybe it would help with the stability as well. My tower didn't hold the Mac n cheese box for a long time however. The box is about 4 oz and the tower only held it for about 10 seconds before it fell.

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I think the EDP is shaped like a circle because it is a continuous process that builds off of itself. There is always a way to improve designs so it is a never ending cycle. I improved my design from last week because I noticed that the structure would be much more sturdy if I turned the cards on their sides. Then I folded them into a circular shape to support the base of a can and then stacked several on top of each other. It was able to 95.5 oz.

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EDP is shaped like a circle because it has a series of steps that guides the development of products and processes to improve our lives. Engineers test, fail and design multiple times until they find the best solution. As they go through their remodel, we learn from our mistakes and apply it to our redesigns. Which is called productive failure.

In my design for this week, I decided to use triangles again but used it in a different way. I placed them down instead of them being up right. I then put two index cards between and repeated 3 more times to make a higher tower rather than making a pyramid type structure. I thought it would be a little more sturdy to hold a lighter food object. I put 2 granola bars on top and weighted a total of 2.48 ounces.

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Molly Harer- Tower #2 holding a candle

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Answering this week's questions, I believe that EDP is shaped like a circle because science is a cycle. Science is researching and discovering new things about everyday things. Similarly to how we spoke in our educational research studies, science and education are always changing. Therefore, the circle is a perfect representation of the constant cycle of gaining, expanding, and engaging in new knowledge!
This week, I improved my design by ditching the idea of a base and instead using my index cards to form structural shapes. I layered and tried to start with a simple triangle for each level. I also doubled up on some of the index cards to create a sound structure, and my tower was able to hold at least 4-4.5 ounces. I believe by creating and using shapes that fit each other like a puzzle piece, and instead of staggering, having equal rows allowed me to build it taller and stronger.

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I believe that the EDP is shaped like a circle because science, engineering, and research for that matter is not one sided and does not have just one answer. It is a cyclical, continuous process that is always evolving. Scientists may develop a way of doing things, but as circumstances in the world change, a new answer might be sought after, resulting in scientists having to repeat certain steps, or even the whole design process, over again. Science is a field in which mistakes are made constantly and are actually encouraged in order for new developments to be made and new ideas to be shared. The only way that these goals will be achieved is if science remains a cyclical process that continuously repeats itself.

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I think that my design improved a good amount from last week being that it could hold the weight of a 5 oz bag of chocolate! Last week, my design could barely hold my 1 oz. stuffed animal. The most drastic change in my design was changing the shape of the base to using triangular-shaped cards instead of rectangular prisms. I believe that this required additional structural support since the tower was now balancing on a wider base. Each level consisted of a level of four index cards that were taped together to create a flat base and then a level of eight triangular-shaped index cards, which I made by simply folding the index cards in half, with another flat level on top of that for a total of three levels. My tower was a little over 1 foot and held the 5 oz. bag of chocolate for over 5 minutes. There were a few gaps, in my design, but they were closer together, compared to my design from last week. Having fewer gaps that took up less space reduced the chance of any sort of weight that I put on top, falling through the tower. Having less space between the gaps also kept each triangle-shaped index card from moving out of place when I placed the bag of chocolate on top of it. Overall, I believe that I learned from the structural mistakes I made with my tower last week and used that knowledge to design a more sturdy, durable tower this week.

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Hi Bailey! I can't believe how much weight your tower was able to hold! I also learned my my design from last week and tweaked it in order to make it stronger. I like how you said that an EDP is like a circle because it is a continuous process. I said something similar but like the points you made to back up your statement!

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Hi Ema! I think your tower came out so good! I love the symmetry of the index cards and the colors you used as well. I also used multiple index cards for each row of my tower in order to make it stronger and able to hold more weight. I made my tower very similar and also had similar success!

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Hi Arianna! Your tower came out so good! I like your strategy of using multiple index cards for each triangle to create a stronger base and I did that for mine as well! I also agree with keeping the tower compact vs. wide due to making that correction from my 1st to my 2nd tower as well. I also agreed that the EDP is like a never ending process due to there always being something to work on or improve on.

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Hey Emily!
It's so interesting that you ended up taping cards together to make it thicker. I had the same problem the first time but didn't think to do this, instead I changed my whole method of building it. I also love how you said the EDP is linear. There is no perfect way to experiment with engineering. Failure is so important when it comes to engineering. Redoing and rethinking about how to prefect something only will happen if we fail and retry. It's so important to allow kids to celebrate failure and honestly even encourage it when engineering in the classroom, so failure is expected and not so scary.

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Hey Alyssa!
I totally agree with you about the trial and error between last week and this week. It is interesting that your tower last week was less strong because of the wider base. I feel like typically we are taught the opposite and it is important to see that there really is no definite rules for what makes a tower stronger and weaker. Since you added more cards to the layers that is what made it so sturdy. I also did not see anyone do a square technique so that was cool to see!

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Hey Marisa!
I changed my design process completely as well! I went from cylinders to triangles and also found that my tower was way more study with that design. That is interesting that you found with less gaps, there was nowhere for the object to break through the tower. I think that must have been the problem with my first attempt too!

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Final tower vid

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I feel that the EDP is shaped in a circle to help people think in structured ways. It is also a continuous and changing process so the circle is showing the way it actually works. Engineering is constantly advancing and never-ending. If it was a straight line it would be "done" once you get to the end of the line. However, engineering is not like that it is a cyclical process. I improved my design by in my opinion making it look a lot cooler and more aesthetically pleasing. However, it was not as strong, which may also be due to my uneven floor. I used cylinders as the support beams this time and again used flat cards as the base of each level to place the beams or items on. My tower only held a quarter. I could have tried to put more weight on it, but I panicked and was scared it would all come crashing down. Every time I do this I always think of ways it could have been done better, or things I can do to improve it. That feeling is also why I believe the EDP is shaped like a circle.

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I think the EDP is shaped like a circle because it is a never ending process. There are always problems to be solved such as home improvement project, what to make for dinner, or a large scale building being built. The EDP process is used to find solutions for all these problems and used in everyday life. My design from last week was highly improved to make today's design. I put 2 index cards where each folded card is and kept them compact together in a close square in order to have stronger support. Making last weeks tower definitely helped me prepare to make this tower because of the trial and error involved. Last week my tower only had one index card for each triangle rather than 2 making it less supported. My tower also was a lot wider which caused it to not be as strong as the current tower. I did not have any canned goods or food, but my tower was able to hold 3 books, 2 of which were reading books. I believe the weight of the books are around 1 -2 pounds.

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I think this tower is much improved over my first. When I did my first one, I was thinking literally of a tower, and made it narrow and tall. This made it very unstable, and I ended up having to add a lot of extra cards and tape to get it to stand up. After seeing my peers' first attempts, I realized that I could make a much easier and more stable tower by making it wider. I ended up folding cards in half and making a zig-zag patters, and placing cards on top of them. Then I repeated that for each layer. My tower held 16oz.

I believe the EDP is a circle because it is not a process that has a clear start and end. Showing it in this way emphasizes that after you go through the steps of the process, you may need to go back to an earlier step to adjust and rework things and that is okay. It is not a failure, just part of the process.