Hello everybody, I am new to both cake decorating and this forum.
I've always had an interest in cake decorating, but only recently I have acted upon my interests and signed up for a Wiltons cake decorating class. I took the first cake decorating basics course and fell in love. Shortly after that I took the Fondant and Gumpaste course and started to play around with cakes.
To this day Ive only made two cakes only one has a disaster story(so far). Ill post pictures of both.

And in order to continue with my questions, I must say this first (Ill try to make it short). The last cake I made was for a 13 year old boy who loves playstation. So I made an 8 cake iced, covered in fondant. Than stacked 3 3x6 rice krispie treats covered in white fondant (to make a PS3 game box) and a black(ish) controller made of rice krispie treats. And once the pieces dried I leaned the controller on the games and left it like that for 24 hours.

To my horror (or any bakers horror for that matter), when I went to retrieve the cake for transport it was completely ruined. Im assuming the weight of the controller and games put too much pressure on the entire cake that it ripped the fondant in so many places I stopped counting. The cake was an entire wreck and I was so upset.

I had put over 5 hours on this cake (although it doesnt look like it) and it was gone. I have only to blame but myself for not researching ways to protect the cake so that this situation wouldnt happen. But everyone learns from their mistakes right?

So now that you know my entire story, Im giving this another try. This time I am asked (for the same family as the PS3 cake) to make a Bar-Mitza cake. They left the entire design up to me as well as the flavor of the cake and icing.

Now, if I wanted to place something on the cake like a tfellin (religious symbol for right of passage from boy to man). What could I make it out of so the weight of the tfellin wouldnt crush the cake causing the same reaction as the PS3 cake? Or how should I build the cake to begin with?

Did you use any supports or dowels or straws or anything like that under the pieces on the first cake?

It's hard to say what went wrong with the xbox, because I have an extensive list of follow questions that would need answers. For the bar mitzvah, I have to take a brief moment to say, I don't think this is the proper place for experimenting. It's a really special event, and I think it's wrong to take it on. That said - there's a number of ways to get the symbal that don't involve chunky rkt. There's royal icing, cutting it out of fondant, and as a team buttercreamer, I'd say pipe it.

Bubbl3h3ad, no. I didn't use any because I was told you only use those for cakes of minimum two tiers. Now I know better.
Brevity, the family knows that I am new to this. That is why this cake is only going to the home of the family. Not to the temple. So, you're saying, to make 4 square shapes from fondant, let it dry and than assemble them as a 3D square and leave it hollow?

Any time you place any topper or something with weight on a cake you need to make sure the cake underneath can support it--tiered or not.
Placing dowels will help distribute the weight of an item. I sometimes will make thin discs of hardened gum paste to set an item on and set that directly over a center dowel. I did that with my OSU grooms cake because the figurine was extremely heavy and I didn't necessarily want the base touching the buttercream.
You need to check out all the tutorials that are on here and on YouTube. I always have a design in mind and then figure out how to achieve the look I want. I really like to see video versions and there are thousands. good luck.

Carmijok, which work better, plastic or wooden dowels and why?

What size is your cake going to be?

8" round