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Construction Design Intro

These are resources for our start-of-semester activity using The Marshmallow Challenge. We also discussed "Intel announces Edison: a 22nm dual-core PC the size of an SD card" (from CES 2014) and introduced TED Talks.

LEARN

Scientists and engineers work together to solve problems and design things. The Marshmallow Challenge provides an opportunity to quickly encourage a group to collaborate together to accomplish a goal. This 7.5 minute video gives some tips for success. 



TALK

Discuss with others at your table how you want to approach our modified Marshmallow Challenge activity.

MAKE


Do the Marshmallow Challenge with these rules:
  1. Get 20 pieces of spaghetti, 1 yard of masking tape, 10 mini-marshmallows, and 1 yard of string.
  2. When the timer starts, you will have 18 minutes to build the tallest tower you can with your group. You MUST have at least 3 mini-marshmallows at the top of your structure.
After time is up, we will take photos of each group's structure and discuss our lessons learned.

Afterwards, copy or save the photo of your group's structure (from our STEM photo blog) and post it to YOUR blog, with at least one sentence describing something you learned from this activity.

Many thanks to Nevada STEM teacher Brian Crosby (@bcrosby) for sharing this idea!


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