Welcome to TAME Engineering Adventures!  Our goal is to help you challenge your students with hands-on learning.

Let TAME kindle your students’ passion for STEM as they take on the 2014 Olympic Tower Divisional Engineering Design Challenge.

It’s a great way to get your TAME Club members to start thinking like engineers in preparation for our STEM Competitions.

 

Four students of different ages work on a prototype of an Olympic Tower, from the 2014 Capital Area Divisional Math & Science Competition, hosted at The University of Texas at Austin.

 

Introduction: How to think like an engineer

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The Olympic Flame from the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games. Photo credit to Lindsey Carmichael.

 

Competition Adventure: Olympic Tower 2014 Divisional Engineering Design Challenge

 

Help your students get excited about this challenge with a warm-up video about the many creative ways different countries have lit the Olympic Flame, from flaming arrows to elaborate many-petalled feats of engineering. Ask students to pick their favorite and ask what they think it would take to build that design.

Share this Popular Science article about how and why engineers and scientists manage the feat of carrying the flame from Olympia for thousands of miles and across varying landscapes and oceans: The strange history of the Olympic Torch—and why it has to stay lit. For example, did you know the Olympic flame is lit with sunshine and a parabolic mirror, which is curved like a small satellite dish? You can talk chemistry when sharing that the recipe for liquid fuel in the torch, usually some combination of butane, propane, and propylene, can be changed to make it brighter or smoke more to be seen on camera or in stadiums. Learn what went disastrously wrong in the 1956 Melbourne Games when engineers added magnesium and aluminum inside the torch so the flame would sparkle and burn brightly.

“Most importantly, having a pressurized tank of fuel allows for a pilot light hidden inside the top of the torch. This little flame can reignite the whole thing if the main flame goes out, which is crucial given that torch-bearers have to sometimes run in the rain and up mountains where the air gets thin. Engineers have to prepare for all these possibilities.

In an interview with Georgia Tech, Sam Shelton, who created the torch for the 1996 Atlanta games, said that he and his team tested the torch’s endurance by carrying it to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado, a 14,115 foot summit. He even took the torch into the shower with him to test its ability to withstand rain.”

Stories about this unique challenge are great examples of the engineering design process, which your student teams will use as they build the final Tower at the end of that epic relay race.

 

Design Brief:

The Olympics are returning! A torch was designed to burn for the duration of the Games.  Unfortunately, recent weather destroyed the supporting tower.  Your mission today is to build a replacement support using the components salvaged from the original. Your team will design and build a prototype tower that is structurally sound and reaches extravagant heights capable of holding the Olympic flame. You will need to use creative engineering approaches and weigh all trade-offs to solve your challenge.

Using the principles of physics and engineering, you have 45 minutes to design and build a prototype tower to hold the Olympic flame high above the stadium. The tower must be tall enough to be visible outside the stadium walls and strong enough to hold the heavy Olympic torch and the fuel to keep the flame burning for two weeks.

Check out these resources that will guide you through the engineering design challenge, but feel free to make accommodations that best fit your classroom.

Primary objectives: Planning! Focus on keeping your tower stable and reinforced by planning around the variables in your control.

Suggested time:45 minutes

Scoring Summary: The following criteria can be used to score the design of the Olympic Tower.

Total Score = At least 8” tall? + # of weights added + Creativity score + Height bonus

The weights score is calculated based on the number of weights added until the tower is compromised. A tower is compromised when the container falls out of the tower, any weight falls out of the container, or the height of the tower is reduced by an inch.

See below for scoring sheet and additional information.

 

Suggested materials

Club Sponsors, feel free to simplify by using materials on hand. In many cases the competitors did not use all the materials, so it is likely you can run this competition with what you have in your classroom.

Materials per team:

 

RAW MATERIALS, MAY BE ALTERED:

5 sheets of paper
1 sheet of construction paper
2 drinking straws
1 index card
11 inches of masking tape
1 small plastic cup used as the container (may be modified as another container)

 

OTHER RESOURCES, MAY NOT BE ALTERED OR USED IN PROTOTYPE:

1 pair of scissors
2 sharpened pencils
Design challenge instructions

 

 

RAW MATERIALS, MAY BE ALTERED:

 

1 spoon straw

10 drinking straws

10 stirrer straws

1 poster board

1 pair of scissors

Masking tape

1 paper cup

3 metal BBs

1 lump of clay

1 paper lunch bag

 

OTHER RESOURCES, MAY NOT BE ALTERED OR USED IN PROTOTYPE:

1 pair of scissors
2 sharpened pencils
	Design challenge instructions
	Small baggie (used for collection)
10 BBs**
1 plastic cup (to measure and pour BBs)

 

**In the 2019 engineering challenge that also used BBs, Black Diamond BBs proved to be the best because they are coated to reduce friction. Uncoated BBs are functional but tended to get stuck in the straws more often. TAME tested several brands and settled on Hornady brand Black Diamond Anodized .177 Steel BBs.

 

JUDGING MATERIALS, MAY NOT BE ALTERED OR USED IN PROTOTYPE:

Plastic tablecloth

Magnetic sweeper (TAME used this brand from Lowe’s.)

 

Four students of different ages work on a prototype of an Olympic Tower, from the 2014 Capital Area Divisional Math & Science Competition, hosted at The University of Texas at Austin.

 

Team member roles: