Sears Tower
This is by far my biggest and tallest tower to date. This scale model of the Sears Tower is thirty feet tall, consist of over 15,000 Jenga blocks, and weighs over 300 pounds.
The tower was completed 27 June, 2005 at 12:30 PM with the assistance of Andrew Beaulieu, who constructed the blinking antennae and helped drop them into position on top of the structure. The battery pack which provides power to the antennae weighs roughly 7 pounds and was VERY difficult to place atop the tower as I'm used to handling mere wooden blocks that are a fraction of the weight. I was very jittery and it was the most difficult balancing act I have ever performed. The portable scaffolding didn't help matters much as it swayed a bit while I was shaking like a leaf hovering over the top of a very fragile structure. It would only take one falling Jenga block to fell this tower; creating a "domino effect". Once into position, the battery provided much needed stability for the antennae to be lowered into place and be connected. Andrew didn't realize just how fragile the structure is at the top without much weight to hold things in place. He had much more confidence than I, so it was he who connected up the wires making the tower LIVE.
There are 96 main floor supports. Each carries roughly ten pounds or ten sets of Jenga. Each set of Jenga contains 54 blocks. In other words there are 540 bocks being balanced above each support.
Here is another look at the base farther out. This tower has one half the stories the actual Sears which has 110 stories. Mine has 55. To conserve blocks, I only built floors every six stories to catch falling blocks as a safety precaution.
This structure has a number of setbacks or steps. This is, in part, an homage to the deco skyscrapers that started all the rage of "bigger is better" back in the early 1930's.
