Monday, September 29, 2008

Week Five Fantastic Solutions

Sam beat everyone to the punch! He already sent in his marshmallow contraption. He did a great job! Here it is with 6 marshmallows:


Madison and Ella just raised 18 marshmallows off the table! Great job girls!


Finaly's structure held up 15 cotton wool balls. And, Jasper's held up 7! (They ran out of paper clips and used Cotton wool instead of marshmallows because they didn't want to throw the marshmallows away.) Great work guys!





H and T "suspended" 36 marshmallows with their contraption. They poked holes in the cups with their paperclips and poked some spaghetti through those holes. They bent open paperclips and hung two marshmallows from each paperclip and draped them over the spaghetti. They used some pieces of spaghetti like a skewer, tied some marshmallows on with string, and then they just piled on as many as they could.


JediBoy got 16 marshmallows off the table! Way to go!


Jaylene in Taiwan used the cutest marshmallows and she suspended 54 of them! Awesome job Jaylene! The flowers might be a bit smaller than what other participants were using, but they were the only kind they had in the store. Check out the different packaging! It's so fun!




Mary and Audrey suspended 10 marshmallows because that's all that were left in the bag after the "experimentation" phase of the project. They used 3 strands of spaghetti for the bridge and pieces of another strand to stick on the remaining marshmallows. Fantastic work girls!


LK did a fantastic job and got some very sticky fingers and 9 marshmallows suspended!


Now -- these next three show some real creative thinking outside of the box! Way to go Gerkins! Chip suspended his a good 3 feet off the table by connecting the paperclips together to form a chain and hanging the chain from the ceiling fan blade. He then connected the paper clips to the cups. 1 cup is upright and 1 is upside down with the spaghetti forming a barrier so the marshmallows inside didn't escape. He then stuck spaghetti through the cups for additional space to put the marshmallows. He did not use the string or the tape. His final total was 57 marshmallows.



Dill's creation was also about 3 feet from the table. He connected the two cups together using paper clips. He then tied the string to a hole he put in a cup, connected the other end of the string to another paperclip and hung it by the ceiling fan pull chain. He piled marshmallows in the cups until he reached 70! He did not use the tape or the spaghetti.



Sweet took a different approach and decided to build a bridge for her marshmallows. She used the two cups as her base and laid the spaghetti on the cups. She found that as soon as she started adding the marshmallows the spaghetti would roll off the cup. So she took the paperclips and used them as barriers on the cups so the spaghetti wouldn't roll. She then laid the spaghetti on the cups and put a layer of paperclips over the spaghetti to strengthen them. She did not use the string or the tape. In the end she had 32 marshmallows on her suspension bridge.



An entire kindergarten class joined in this challenge. And, they built some magnificent marshmallow structures!















Saturday, September 27, 2008

Week Five -- Marshmallows

Place the following materials on the table:

1 bag of marshmallows
2 paper cups
10 paperclips
5 sticks of spaghetti
1 inch of tape
10 inches of string

"Suspend" as many marshmallows as possible at least 1 inch above the table. Snap a picture and send us your results. Can't wait to hear from you!

Check out our new ongoing challenges in the right-hand column!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Week Four - Solutions

All of the participants below will be entered in our October giveaway drawing. See you next week!

Sonia was the first to solve our challenge this week! She came up with this "space alien" that stood 4 inches above ground for over 10 minutes until she decided to eat the apple...

She only used 2 life savers, 3 mini marshmallows , 3 half straws and a big apple. Awesome job Sonia!


Audrey, age 3, enjoyed making contraptions with marshmallows and toothpicks. This one is a puffer fish. It's the only one that doesn't have bites taken out of it.




For Mary's first design, she decided to go for stability rather than height. It was only about a half inch above the table, but would have stood forever (or at least until the marshmallows compressed too much -- we didn't time it).




Mary's second design raised the apple about 2 inches above the table and stood for 1:34. She used 3 large marshmallows, 6 toothpicks, and 16 Lifesavers. Way to go Audrey and Mary! Great work. You will be entered in our October drawing. We look forward to seeing you again next week.



Cohen-age 3- used 3 caps, 3 marshmallows, and 3 straws and lifted the fruit about 1/2 an inch off the table. He was more interested in just making, than actually lifting the fruit.


Rylan- age 7- used 3 caps, 3 marshmallows, 3 straws, 1 toothpick to lift the fruit 7.5 inches off the table. Once properly situated it stayed for just under a minute.



Taejan ( 3 years old) got his off the ground at 1.5 inches and it stayed until he ate it!


Jadziah ( almost5) got her’s off 2.5 inches and again it stayed till she ate it!


Declan (6.5 years old) got his off at 5.5 inches... his was a slight bit more wobbly but it stayed put!


Noah ( 14) also got 5.5 inches:


H and T had this solution that stood 7 3/4 inches from the counter and stood overnight. They used 3 marshmallows, 6 toothpicks, 3 bendy straws (that made it harder), 3 caps, and 16 lifesavers. They tried to get one taller but the apple was too unstable. We may keep trying!


Maggie, Jacob and Katie all made structures that were approximately 11 inches tall! They used Cheerios and harder dishwasher-safe straws. Their structures stood for 20 minutes! Way to go guys!




Noach just sent in his elevated apple with the ruler showing that it stood 6 inches above the table. Way to go Noah!


Cairn got her apple 4 inches off the ground and her dad and aunt gave it a whirl too!




The Gerkins (Chip, Dill and Sweet) also did a great job at this challenge using some creative construction techniques:






LK just sent in her elevated apple. It was 1.5 inches off the ground and stood for 31 hours until she decided to eat it. Great work LK!



Sir Knight won the apple suspension challenge. His apple was a bit higher and stayed that way for 4 minutes. Princess managed to keep her apple up for 55 seconds.