Is My Home Earthquake Proof?

Experiment to find the best earthquake proof structure!

Year 9 geographers were given the challenge of designing a structure out of spaghetti and marshmallows that would withstand the ‘earthquake test’. Each group was given 30 pieces of spaghetti and 40 pieces of marshmallow and had 15 minutes to design their structure. Each group then had 1 minute to persuade the class that their structure was the best before being tested on a tray of jelly that was shaken to represent an earthquake! We found that the best structure had a wider base that was square or rectangular and also had triangular sections to give additional strength.