Jayde Martinez

September 5, 2018
Period 6
The Tower Challenge Lab Report
Asking a question:
Can we use one sheet of paper and 30 centimeters of tape to make a tower that stands for
more than 15 seconds and reaches 70 cm or higher?

Forming a Hypothesis:
At first I didn’t think it was going to work because we could only use 30 centimeters of tape and
1 piece of paper that is shorter than 70 cm. I thought that it was going to be impossible due to
the little amount of supplies we had. The only thing that I thought that was going to make the
paper stands was the 30 cm of tape we had. What I thought was going to happen was that I
though it wasn’t going to stand at all and it would just fall over. The way that I think you should
approach the challenge is that maybe think about what design you are going to have for the
structure and the type of people with the ideas and helping.

Testing the Hypothesis:

One side of the structure kept leaning because on the side that it was leaning on, there was
more tape on the other side which made it uneven. Some parts were good and some parts were
bad. The good parts were that most of the time the structure was standing. The structure leans
over but not as much and when you move the table a little bit it doesn’t fall but it depends how
strong you strong you shake the table. The parts that went wrong were that the structure leans
over a little bit. When you shake the table alot it sometimes falls over. It also wasn’t really that
tall. We also needed more supplies like more tape and paper. The way you can maybe fix these
problems is by using an equal amount of tape on each side you are using it an to make sure
your base is strong enough to hold the entire structure.

Analyzing Results:
For the first and second trial, we had only 20 minutes to build our tower. For the third trial we
had 30 minutes which means we got an extra 10 minutes so we can make the last trial to the
best of our ability. The first trial, the tower was 36 centimeters and it stood for 7 seconds. The
second trial was 45 centimeters and stood for 12 seconds. The third tower was 43 centimeters
and stood for 10 seconds. On all three trials, all the towers were leaning but only a little bit. It
didn’t really affect the height of the tower but it probably lowered the height by 1 centimeter.
They all did stand for a long time until you shake the table. They all passed the 15 second test
which is basically where the tower has to stand more than 15 seconds or more to pass.

Drawing Conclusions:
Yes my analysis supports my thesis because most likely if you are going to build a tower out of
1 paper and 30 centimeters of tape, it would most likely be leaning over a little bit and it may not
even stand at all depending on how your base is. It mostly depends on your building skills, time,
and your ideas.