Students celebrating the Student Association's Engineer's Week played with their food and ate it, too. The colony of Theta Tau, a coed professional engineering fraternity, took first place Tuesday in the "Consumable Tower" competition held in the lobby of the Student Union.
Although Theta Tau did not create the tallest or most architecturally sound tower, the group did have the second-tallest tower and were able to consume the entire structure.
"Homeless people would kill for that food," said Karen Smith as she observed the contestants stuff their faces with the edible building blocks.
Contestants were given a variety of food items - celery, carrots, pretzels, graham crackers, marshmallows, bananas, taco shells, peanut butter and frosting - and told to construct the highest building.
Teams of two or three raced to build the highest tower in the 15 minutes allotted. When the time was up and the towers (or ruins) were measured, the teams had to elect two of their members to eat all items used in their creations.
The highest tower, built by a team from the undergraduate Student Association, was recorded at 26 inches. The representatives from that team, however, did not attempt to eat their winning structure.
SA's strategy was to build a tower that resembled a card house, using peanut butter to cement the walls made of graham crackers. As for eating the projects, their tower looked the most harmless, but apparently no one in the group was hungry enough.
The second-highest tower was measured at 21 inches, with the third-place finisher tallying 16.
If height were the only criteria to win this event, SA would have won; unfortunately, the contest was more complex than that. To find the winning team, a ratio was taken from the height of the tower and the time it took to eat it, rendering Theta Tau the winners of the contest, earning 100 points for Engineer's Week and a bad case of heartburn.
Jeff Mahon, SA engineering clubs coordinator, organized the event. The idea sprouted from an article on a similar contest held at Indiana University, which Mahon modified to come up with the Consumable Tower.
"We wanted something interesting to watch," said Mahon.
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) also participated in the noontime competition.
"We are using the least possible materials," replied Nick Leone, a member of AIAA, when reminded he still had to eat his tower.
Unfortunately, Leone and his team member Dennis Muradov did not make it to round two. Their tower, consisting of a mushy banana bottom and peanut buttered celery sticks, toppled before it could be measured. Leone claimed it was the vibrations from the celebratory teams that led to their tower's destruction.
Mahon walked between groups shouting "Eat! Eat!" on his microphone until all groups were done snacking.
"It is a nice way to kill time between classes," said Matt Kaiser, a civil engineering major, as he watched the contest.
Two bystanders observing the competition took an empty place at the tables and tried to compete with the rest of the engineers. When puncturing holes in bananas with carrots and setting marshmallow atop failed, they resorted to stacking plastic cups - not much of a consumable tower.
According to Mahon, cleanup was not too harsh of a chore. The plastic drop cloths were a good idea, he thought in retrospect.
"It's a frickin' waste of food," said Andrew Garrett as he watched the contest, although many people in attendance did not share his negative attitude.
"In general everyone had a good time," said Mahon.
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
