Magnificent Marshmallow Marvels 1 - Adventures in Civil Engineering

In 1991 when I was working for Bechtel in San Francisco, I participated in this program called Engineer’s Week. It took place in February, if I remember correctly, and it was around Valentine’s Day time. Bechtel encouraged their engineers for volunteer to participate in this outreach program. We went out to different schools and spent a couple of hours talking about what we did and led the students in a fun, hands-on project which supposed encouraged the students to see Math and Science as something other than hard or boring.

There were many projects to choose from, but I choose this one because I thought it would be fun and it was easy to get hands on the materials (for Engineer’s Week, I think we didn’t have to do anything except pick up the project supplies from an admin and show up at school). I don’t remember what the project was called, but this is what I call it.

Magnificent Marshmallow Marvels – Adventures in Civil Engineering

For this project, you need mini marshmallows and toothpicks. A lot of toothpicks. I suggest the Dollar Store/Dollar Tree, etc. for the toothpicks because you can get a box of 1000 toothpicks for $1 (you’d be amazed at how many boxes of these toothpicks a kindergarten or a 1^st grade class will go through).

I start the class by talking about living in California, earthquakes in general, then why earthquakes occur and plate tectonics (depends on the grade). I always have a tangible premise for the project. Most often, we’re trying to build inexpensive, yet safe housing for the poor in countries such as China, Chile, etc. The team that builds the safest and tallest house/building wins.

Supplies:

1. Mini marshmallows
2. Toothpicks
3. A shakable flat surface (bigger than shoe box size plastic container lids work great) 

Instructions:

1.       Create a cube with marshmallows and toothpicks.

2.       Create a body-centered-cubic cube with marshmallows and toothpicks.

3.       Place these two cubes on a flat, shakable surface (most often, it’s a plastic container lid I find in class), secure them in place (holding on to them with the lid or lightly tape the bottom toothpicks to the lid) and shake them to see how they react to an “earthquake” of your creation.

4.       Try to build another level on top of the ground level housing.

  

5.       Without much effort, students are able to easily build 2 level high structures, but anything beyond that is a challenge because marshmallows are actually terrible building material (This is why marshmallows are used. It’s inherently and deceptively challenging because they are too stretchy).

6.       To build beyond two levels, first the buildings must be reinforced in the bottom with two toothpicks vertically used in the each corner of the ground floor cube. This applies to both cube designs.

7.       There are infinite ways to build higher than two levels. Try different ways and see what you and your students/kids can come up with.

The key concepts I talk about in class are:

1.       Fatigue Failure – there are some great definitions on the web, but I tell my students that it’s a fancy engineer’s way of saying it just got tired after repeated loading and unloading of weight (in this case, it’s the weight of the building itself).

2.       Dissipation of forces – again, there are some great definitions on the web, but I tell my students it’s spreading out the weight or the burden. If one person is holding up something very heavy, it’s much easier if two or three people share the burden of holding up the same weight (the example of two toothpicks in the same corner instead of just one).

Here are some other neat structures you can build with your kids/students.

Experiment and have fun!

Why I started

Hello there. A little introduction before I start.

My background is in mechanical engineering, but I hardly practiced it in reality (as in design or mechanical aspects of it). After graduating from Cal, I went to work for Bechtel as a project controls engineer (project management, heavy emphasis on cost and schedule). I worked on many interesting projects - nuclear power projects, coal power projects, environmental clean-up projects, shrimp farms, a Saudi City, etc. When I moved to the semiconductor industry, I worked as a project engineer, program/project manager, and product marketing manager.

Once I had children, I became more interested in finding ways to challenge and engage them in learning. My children were very curious (they still are), and even as toddlers. I used to give them household stuff to keep them occupied while I was busy making dinner, etc. During this time, I was often surprised at how much I had underestimated what they could understand and accomplish.

When my first child started 1st grade, I decided to conduct science projects in his class every week. In kindergarten, I volunteered to help with art projects and read Korean fairy tales to the students. Now, it wasn't "science" every week. I've taught the students the Korean alphabet, some keywords, how to write their names and a few basic phrases. Other times, it was a more craft-orientated project, constructing an origami box.

In the beginning (~2007 and 2008), I searched the web for projects I could easily do in a classroom setting. I wanted to print out instructions and take them into the classroom with little outside trouble-shooting time. But I was surprised that I couldn't find projects like that on the web. 

I volunteered my time with the Engineer's Week while I was at Bechtel, and I knew some projects were fun to do, and the students learned a lot from each time. So, I started with the two projects I had used - Marshmallow structures and the paper column project. Then I kept adding on, initially with project variations but with some new and fantastic ones (like Strawkets). 

I've noticed that there are a lot of science websites and blogs online, and I'll share what I thought were some of the best ones later. What's unique about my projects is that the supplies are inexpensive and readily available almost anywhere around the world. My goal is to make science and math fun for every child, but more importantly, I want to nurture their natural sense of curiosity and encourage their love of learning.

I begin every class by talking about or asking students to define the three words I love - Curiosity, Creativity, and Perseverance. Then I ask them to push their creative envelope and Fail Spectacularly! 

Fail Spectacularly is the motto for many of my more challenging projects. 

So, let's fail spectacularly together and learn!