2011 Science Olympiad Towers Event Division C

This year I competed in the Science Olympiad Towers Event and placed 6th holding all the weight required. The rules were quite difficult to understand, and that is the main reason we only placed 6th. In the rules, it states that the load supported shall not exceed 15kg, what that ended up meaning is that they don't test to failure, they only add 15kg of weight and if it holds, they go by weight of the tower. It was annoying, because if tested to failure we would have received a higher score, but our tower ended up being overkill to hold 15kg. Next year, we will be competing in the same event again and hopefully understand next year's rules better than this year. 
Here's the order of pictures
Picture 1: The Final Product
Picture 2: The top section of the tower before modification
Picture 3: The base section of the tower strengthened with Gorilla Glue
Picture 4: The Tower before modification
Picture 5: A close-up view of the base section
Picture 6: Weighing the tower at State
Picture 7: Setting the tower up on the loading base
Picture 8: Loading the sand into the 5 gallon bucket
Pictures 9 & 10: The rules of the competition