Techtronics Towers Unit
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Published on TeachEngineering by Techtronics
Click on links below to access the Techtronics Towers Unit, “Building Towards the Future,” published on the Teachengineering website.
Unit: Building Towards the Future
- Introductory Activity: Newspaper Towers
- Lesson: The Next Dimension
- Activity: A Place in Space
- Lesson: Skyscrapers: Engineering Up?
- Activity: Balsa Towers
Unit Description
The Techtronics Towers Unit introduces students to basic Civil Engineering concepts in an exciting and interactive manner. Skyscrapers are the most glorified product of Civil Engineering and contain an interesting history of progress and development. The entire unit builds towards the design of balsa wood towers in small groups. First, the unit begins with students exploring tower design through building “Newspaper Towers” in a flexible setting that encourages inquiry-based learning. As the ability to visualize in three dimensions is imperative to civil engineers, there is a hands-on activity designed to teach three dimensional coordinates. Next, students learn the importance of Computer Aided Design (CAD) in engineering. They have the opportunity to design their own Towers in CAD. Finally, students design and build balsa wood towers exploring the design principles that allow these structures to withstand vertical and lateral forces.
The first lesson, “The Next Dimension” teaches students about the three dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, and activity “A Place in Space” provides them the opportunity to practice using a coordinate system. It is important for structural engineers to be confident graphing in 3D in order to be able to describe locations in space to fellow engineers. It is also important for students to understand the Cartesian coordinate system prior to using the CAD program.
Next, students work in groups of 2-3 learning ModelSmart 3D, an educational computer aided design and analysis package. They are provided with a worksheet that guides them in the design of a simple tower while still making them use their newly acquired 3D graphing skills (click here for ModelSmart 3D Tower Tutorial). This generally is very exciting for the students, although some students struggle a bit with the software and required more assistance from the instructors than others. The Techtronics Towers tutorial emphasizes the students’ knowledge of the Cartesian coordinate system. ModelSmart 3D is available from the Pre-Engineering Software Corporation.
In the final lesson “Skyscrapers: Engineering Up?“, the students learn about the history of the world’s tallest free standing structures and the basic design principles behind their success. Next, in engineering design teams, students design and build their own towers in the “Balsa Towers” activity. In Techtronics, the student groups play the role of contractors competing for a contract to build a tower for the city of Durham as described in the Techtronics Tower Design Guidelines. Not only do they have design constraints, but they also must build the tower within budget. Techtronics, Inc. provides discounts on materials for good behavior and price penalties for poor behavior as outlined in the Techtronics Tower Budget Guidelines. The student groups first design their towers on large sheets of butcher paper. Then, they use ModelSmart 3D CAD to analyze their designs. Finally, they build and test their towers. The towers are tested on a compression machine in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the Pratt School of Engineering.
