/sci/ - Science & Math

Today in my engineering class our professor decided to have a quick little game with us and see who could make the tallest tower out of spaghetti. It had to hold some marshmallow at the top.

I got paired up with two other people in the class and immediately they decided to make a triangular structure that started to become a teepee. In fact, most of the other groups were doing a similar thing. I wanted to build some sort of structure in the form of a tower (pic related). Of course the teepee idea started to collapse to one side due to an imbalance of weight.

So my question is: Why do people go to that design? I don't understand. Is there something I'm missing or is it just a really quick go-to design?