The Marshmallow Challenge is a fun and instructive exercise that encourages teams to experience simple but profound lessons in collaboration and creativity. It's a perfect way to spark innovation and teamwork in any classroom!
The activity is a fast and powerful technique for improving a team’s capacity to generate ideas, build rapport and incorporate prototyping. This lesson also reveals the true nature of collaboration, illustrates how each person innovates, and emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives.
Students in Mr. Herron's Computer Science class compete to build the tallest freestanding structure using only marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti within a given time limit. Though a marshmallow might not seem like a significant mass to support, students are challenged when they are constrained to using spaghetti sticks and marshmallows. Once the group selects a design, they will need to build, test and redesign to make sure it is stable and can support the marshmallow, all within the time limit.