Week 2 began with an unsolved mystery! Three suspects were identified in a recent job-site murder: an architect, a construction manager, and an engineer. The students had to figure out who the murderer was by asking questions and considering some key evidence found at the site. They asked some great questions, including what hours each person worked, what they wore to work each day, and what kind of software tools they used most. In the end, the architect did it! His architectural scale that he left on site was the clue that did him in…

After the mystery was solved, we broke up into teams for a spaghetti and marshmallow building contest. Teams had about 30 minutes to design and build the tallest tower made out of raw spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. All the designs were great, and two stood out in height. After we measured for the winner, a huge earthquake hit! It was fun to see which buildings withstood the (man-made) seismic forces.