What do a coffee can and a piece of paper have in common with the ancient world? Well, our Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Aztec, Inca and Maya friends all were amazing engineers–think Inca walls, mud brick ziggurats, floating gardens and pyramids. In class we learned about the production of mud bricks and how the Inca cut stone using only stone tools. While the Sumerians probably would have loved building with stone and Inca would have delighted in carving stone with steel tools, their environments lacked these natural resources. Therefore, they worked with the materials they found in their environment.
To simulate the challenge of limited resources and to experiment with the concept of trial and error while building, the students had to construct a tower using only a single sheet of paper and a six inch strip of tape. Making this task even more difficult was the requirement that the tower hold at least one coffee can filled with water. We had many clever designs and feats of engineering as students sought to balance the heavy can.
