Toothpick Tower Helpful Hints

Glue

• Students are often impatient and want to use fast drying glues like super glue and hot glue. Hot glue is very heavy and far too flexible to be used in this project. Super glue dries too quickly and does not allow the toothpicks to bond together. The best glues for this project are white glue or wood glue.
  
  

• Emphasize to the students that in order for the toothpicks to hold they must come in contact with each other. In other words, wood needs to be touching (overlapping) wood. Students often place pieces next to each other and pour a big puddle of glue in between them to hold them together.
  
  
• Emphasize that the glue needs to be placed in between the pieces that are to be glued--not on top of the pieces.
  
  
• Make sure the students are working on the wax paper and avoid gluing the toothpicks directly to the wax paper.
  
  
• Students can cut toothpicks to fit awkward angles.
  
  
• Large chunks of dried glue can be cut off after the tower is constructed to reduce the overall mass.
  
  

Construction Hints and Tips

Testing Hints

To construct the testing platform, cut a 15 by 15 cm square out of a 1/2 inch or thicker piece of plywood. The test platform can sit in between two tables that are the same height or in between two saw horses. Make sure the platform is level before testing the towers. The test block can be made out of plywood, a furring strip, or a 2 x 4 with a hole drilled in the center. Make sure anyone near the testing area is wearing safety glasses. A scale capable of measuring heavy loads, such as a doctor's scale, will make the testing easier and more accurate. The bucket of sand can be placed directly on the scale. Loads on average towers can be over 20 pounds.

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