Simulation finds how high a 54-piece Jenga tower stands at various floor tilts
Using Codex and Claude Code to run simulated construction trials, an experiment determined the tallest stable Jenga tower achievable at floor tilts ranging from 0.1° to 25°. On a perfectly flat surface, all 54 blocks stood on end would reach 4.05 meters but collapse at just a 0.21° tilt; the AI-driven search instead found optimal heights for each tilt angle, ranging from 331.5 cm at 0.1° down to 19 cm at 25°.
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The exercise illustrates how small changes in surface stability sharply constrain structural height, a principle that could extend to real-world building design where foundations are rarely perfectly level. It also shows a creative use of AI coding tools like Codex and Claude Code for physical simulation and optimization problems rather than purely software tasks, suggesting such tools might be adapted for engineering-style trial-and-error search.
- A flat-floor tower of 54 Jenga blocks could theoretically reach 4.05 meters but is extremely unstable.
- AI tools (Codex and Claude Code) were used to simulate and search for optimal tower designs across 15 different floor tilt angles.
- Tower height drops sharply as tilt increases, from over 3 meters near zero tilt to under 20 cm at 25°.
Jenga Classic Game — The article's whole tower-balancing experiment starts with a basic box of 54 Jenga blocks, making this classic set the perfect way to try your own stability puzzles at home. It's a great excuse to combine hands-on play with a bit of amateur physics and engineering, just like the author did with their daughter.
See Jenga Classic Game on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: johnjwang.com — John Wang, 2026-11-05
Published there as: “How tall can you build with 54 Jenga blocks?”
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