could be, but they use 3 connected towers,

I'll try to do better this spring

I'm glad that I've finally found a place where people know what they are talking about when it comes to K'nex. It's also interesting to have found people with the ambition to build the tallest K'nex tower, which would set a new record for the worlds tallest toy structure.

Yes the K'nex record tower was free standing. It was built in a airplane hanger in England near Guiness world records headquarters. To build any tower over 100ft tall that is free standing in 24hours or less(part of the record most people don't know) would be a massive undertaking. It would take well over 50,000 and closer to 100,000+ parts, a huge place to set it up, equipment to do so, money, time, A very well laid plan and people to help.

Well since K'nex set this record ten years ago I have been working on this very record. Over the years with help from my friends I have designed, built, tested, redesigned, retested, and so-on. We are a group of Eagle Scouts from Buffalo NY, but due to work we moved to Yulee, FL. Well I have over 150,000 parts and a solid design.

With many interested venues, companies and charities we have been refining and adapting our ideas for how where and when to set this up. I'm not going to give anything away since it would ruin the plans we have for contests related to the tower. It will be well over the current record, be at a public venue where people can come watch us build it and do some other yet to be specifed events. We are still gathering what we need before real talks with any venues will take place. We are 70% to 80% done with this step.

So far the plan places us in summer 2010 when we will start to picth our plans to the already interested parties and do the first ever full scale testing. Basiccaly this is the only place where any info we release(witch will be slim to none untill plans are finalized) will apper. From all my surfing the web it seems safe to say that we are the only group close to doing this, we have been taking this seriously from day one and will see this to the end. I can say that not only are we going for the tallest toy structure, but the tallest rollercoaster and fastest coaster are in the works.

No news on if we will go for a triple play. But I will keep people informed with what info we decide to share.

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Sounds very promising.Hopefully it all works out and you can actually do this.

How high are you aiming to go?
What kind of tower design are you going to do? Are you going to follow the knex record, and build 4 columns with cross beams all the way up? I wouldn't mind seeing your blueprints, or plans if you have any.

Also, Welcome to the Forums.

well, to give normal (home) builders a chance, I don't like using multiple towers with cross-beams. It starts using so much parts and makes way taller buildings possible, sole builders don't stand a chance.

If wat AJ is saying is true then they must have a way on reinforcing the train carts caus what the current records did, the cars were exploding caus of the friction, insanely rotation speeds on the wheels and so on.
Though, I wish you and your 'team' best of luck with it.

You might be able to hit 150 feet with that amount of pieces, but if it isn't sturdy enough, it's going to collapse just under its own weight and dimensions.

I'd just say build an uber-tall Sears Tower or Burj Dubai.

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Well right now it's planned for 125ft and up. The design is still a bit up in the air. Literally. Blueprints are mostly pictures and napkin drawings. I can say that the base is at least going to be 144sq ft. But it may be larger depending on what the height ends up as.

People will be able to walk right though it & for at least half the tower the middle will be hollow. The coaster thing is more of wishfull thinking then anything. We know of the problems involved with the coaster records. Just the idea proposed was that if we are building a tower>100ft y not slap a 50ft coaster on it too? But after we build this a coaster>50ft should be easy. We are not aiming for a 100ft coaster but that would be really cool.

I will post some pics when we build full scale again. So it might be a while. We are getting more parts whenever we can. That number is just what we know we have organized at this time. I still have more to count. The weight has always been an issue. Ploblems came up and where overcome. Just think of the world trade center towers. They had all of it's supporting sturcture on the outside.

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I'm interested in how your construction looks like.

I will keep on using my triangle shape. it's light-weight and easy to reinforce (if you find some of the methods)
the only disadvantage is that the 3d connecters have no single use. (except a bit of implementation in the base structure)

another limitation on my tower is the range of our back-yard. I don't want it to land at the neighbour's when it crashes. Maybe i will have to start using some strings/ropes to make it tumble into a certain direction if it realy is going down.

My back yard is 2 acres big, but I can't build any towers because the ground isn't level!

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My largest ball machine to date is Cataclysm,
using 28,538 pieces.

Use a sheet of some kind, like metal. or a palette may help (the wooden things they use to stock things on)
use bricks and wood to level it out.

I wish I had a big backyard to test designs in. Fourtunatly we've been able to do test builds of full scale designs in a few places like the community college where I use to live. Taking advantage of tall stairways with wide gaps in the middle. Our biggest test was about 40ft of a scraped design. One thing that's outta the question is a big fall & boom. If it was the real tower it'd be so big there would be too much of a risk of someone being hurt. That's why enclosed spaces like stairways are perfect to test in.

We are planning on building some sorta custom leveled platform for the tower to stand on. Nothing to complex, but not just a wood box. It's kinda amazing of the number of different parts we are using. Almost every basic piece, but mostly in the supporting arms and braces only, still, it's a supporting beam on a 144sq ft tower, it's huge! The biggest thing we have seen in build towers 50+ft and that is the center of gravity. The lower the better but only as low as the base is high. No matter what design it almost always comes down to that damn gravity. But learning is simple, use the weight of the tower to your advantage. Make to push & pull to tower where you want it to. O here's one of my most interesting designs. Try to figure out an octuple-double helix.

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to imagine that i'd first need to understand octuple
(english isn't my mother tongue)

octa mostly refers to the number 8

so an 8-twin helix in a tower (0_o)

when i sorted out the 2 boxes i bought, it was full of gray and red rods (or same length ones), this is gonna be fun when building a new tower.

btw, AJ 909, are you people sponsored by someone? and how many people is this "group of friends" you are building this tower with?

and if yo want to have some fun material for youtube, install some camera in it that can be pulled up to the top of the tower.

I am definitely interested in seeing some images of your concepts.

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The name I came up with "Octuple-Double Helix" means a set of circles one inside the other. Each have 8 rods for vertical support. One twisting one way, the other the opposite. The twists should link up every two rods.

Sorry I can't be more detailed it's just a design from a while ago. I'll build a sample and post pics later. And no we are not sponsered. The group was 6 people but since we moved it's down to three. But I hope they will come down here for whenever we build this thing. Well Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays everyone.

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could i see a pic of some of the other atemps. i was able to get a tower to 32 feet working off my roof. i was limited due to not having enof parts. i would think given the place to do it and equment you prob could get a tower to 200 feet. it would take one masive base. that much knex starts to get heavey.