6 Amazing prizes to be won

We are offering three £50 Amazon vouchers as prizes in each category (a total of six prizes). The overall winner will also receive an extra-special mystery prize…

How will the towers be judged?

The towers will be judged in two categories: primary and secondary.

The top towers in both categories will be displayed in a special exhibition at Oxford’s History of Science Museum.

The factors we that will be taken into account when we are judging the towers are:

  1. The overall height of your tower.
  2. The ingenuity and originality of the construction materials and technique you have used.
  3. How amazing your tower looks.

We would also like to see some really good posters.

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY BY: 22nd June 2020

The Rules

This is a challenge inspired by Magdalen’s College’s Great Tower — an amazing piece of architecture that I hope we will all be able to visit together very soon.

Magdalen’s Great Tower is more than five hundred years old and at 44m tall it is the highest building in the whole of Oxford.

What do you have to do?

The Great Tower Challenge is a competition designed to test your science skills, your ingenuity, your determination, and your imagination…

Your mission is to build a self-supporting tower as tall as you are out of entirely recycled materials. If you succeed you could win one of six fantastic prizes.

What are the rules?

  1. Your whole tower must be made of items that would ordinarily be thrown away or recycled.
  2. The bottom of your tower can’t be any larger than 15 cm x 15 cm. We recommend that you draw out a 15 x 15 cm square on a piece of paper or cardboard and use this as a base for your construction work.
  3. Your tower must stand up on its own. No hanging it from the ceiling or tying it to the wall!
  4. Your tower must be built of at least three different materials.
  5. To enter the competition you must also make a poster describing how you made your tower and your reasons for choosing the approach you took. You can do this by hand or on the computer.

You can build your tower in a team — in fact this is a great team challenge! If you do so, your team’s tower must be as tall as the tallest person in your group.

Submit your response

Ask an adult or carer to submit your response here. Pictures and videos must be of artwork and have no people in them.