Author: Julia Medina

Engineers make changes after testing designs. Describe the most important change you made while testing tall towers. Which idea was your best idea?

(You can earn this badge 1 time, and it’s worth 30 points. You should describe how you used data to make this improvement.)

You can upload a table or graph of your data here. Think about how your data has changed since you started. Do you collect new types of data? Do you think someone else could read your data and know what it means? Engineers use data to show why they make changes. You can collect and use data for all types of designs!

Think about what worked well for getting this data. You can use those strategies again for the next challenge!

Share one more picture of your testing. This final picture should highlight some of the changes you made since your first design. Is the bottom wider? Is your top taller? If so, show how your tower looks and emphasize those changes. We want to see how much problem solving you have been doing!!

By now, we hope you are having fun changing and testing your boat. Keep going forward! If you want to send us more pictures, you can tag us on Facebook, connect on Instagram, or simply upload another picture on this website.

Thanks for working so hard! You are engineering very well. Time for one more data badge.

This is the last time you can earn a Planning Badge, but please don’t let that stop you from making more designs!! You could make designs using different design ideas OR you could add more materials and build an even taller tower! We love to see how far you can push these challenges!

Upload a sketch of your latest design.

We hope it is becoming easy to draw and create these designs. Continue making designs clear and useful!

How tall is your tower now? Are there pieces of your tower that are not making it taller or stronger? Are there joints in your tower that need more support? What is the area of the bottom of your tower?

Use this space to record all the data you collected about your Tall Tower.

Upload a picture showing how you are testing your Tall Tower. Be sure your picture shows changes you made in your boat design.

We may share your boat picture with other people if we think that they can learn from your process or your design. Your boat may be famous!!

Like many other engineers, you are working hard to improve these designs. Making changes to a plan is how we create the best designs. Please upload a picture of your NEW Tall Tower plan here.

(You can receive up to two more 20-point badges for your Tall Tower plans. You must go through the process 3 times to receive all 3 badges.)

After you complete this step move on to Testing Your Ship!

Engineers use data to improve designs while they test. Upload a picture of the data you just collected from your first test.

Now you have great data! Some data you found may not be numeric. It may be what part of your tower worked. What part of your tower leaned. How long it was able to stay up with no help. Or, maybe you had to put your hand on your tower so it would not fall down. That data would tell you where to add strength!

All of this data is important!

Use all the data you have to improve your boat’s plan. You can click here to upload a new plan for your Tall Tower.