Project: Marshmallow Tower

Group size: 4-5 students
Activity time: 45 minutes

Inspired by Tinkerlab's "Spaghetti Tower Marshmallow Challenge"

“Marshmallow Tower” is part of the Design Activities resource, which compiles activities that students can use to practice and reflect on design processes.

In “Marshmallow Tower”, students will work in teams to create the tallest freestanding tower out of dry spaghetti noodles and duct tape to support a jumbo marshmallow at the top.

We invite you to use this project with a capture method from the Capturing Design Signatures collection. Using a capture method, this activity gives students the opportunity to reflect on the actions they take in their design process, and notice how they work together as a team.

Choose one of the following capture methods:

• Design Signatures App: This app helps students track their design process on a mobile app or on a desktop website, and creates a colorful visual timeline of their design process stages. 
• Bubble sheets: This bubble sheet helps students track their design process by pen and paper, by “bubbling in” the dot for the corresponding time and design process stage.
• Google forms survey: This Google Forms survey helps students track their design process by filling in checkboxes in a survey.
• Spreadsheet: This spreadsheet helps students track their design process by coloring in cells for the corresponding time and design process stage. Designed to support asynchronous data collection for longer projects.

The purpose of this activity is to allow students to engage in a low-stakes and creative team-building activity. Through this activity, students may become more aware of their team dynamics and design processes. With a capture method, students can analyze the actions they take.

This activity will help students:

• Think creatively and work on a hands-on physical build
• Work in a team
• Get feedback on their team dynamic and engagement with a design process
• Reflect on their skills and think about how they can improve

• Dry spaghetti (each team receives 20 noodles)
• Jumbo marshmallows (each team receives 1)
• Masking tape
• A capture method
• Optional: A reward - we sometimes use chocolate bars
• Optional: Manila envelopes or bags to distribute the supplies for each team.

1. You will be distributing spaghetti noodles in manila envelopes and marshmallows for each team. Team sizes should be 4-5 people.
2. Set aside 20 spaghetti noodles for each team. (If you are preparing the materials before class, this is where the manila envelope can come in handy, to store the groups of 20 noodles and prevent them from breaking.)
3. Set aside 1 marshmallow for each team.
4. Rip and set aside one 6-inch strip of masking tape for each team.
5. Optional: Set up the capture method you’ve chosen according to the instructions we’ve provided on that capture method’s page.

The following instructions are written with capture methods embedded.

1. Have each team set up the capture method you’ve chosen.
2. Distribute all the supplies to each team of students (20 spaghetti noodles, 1 jumbo marshmallow, 1 strip of masking tape).
3. Have teams select who will be the capture method recorder.
4. Give teams 18 minutes to do the challenge! Every 1 minute, call out a time check for the recorder to record their team’s design process stage using the capture method.
5. At the end of the challenge, it’s time to measure the towers your students have created. Use a tape measure to measure from the table to the top of the marshmallow. The team with the highest tower wins the challenge!
6. Have your teams discard the towers—remove the tape and place it in the trash, and place the noodles and marshmallows in the compost.
7. Have each team view their design signature and engage in a 5 minute discussion about their process. The following questions may be used:
   1. How did your teamwork go? What interesting things happened as you tried to make your tower?
   2. Does the data from the user researcher map to your experience?
   3. From this signature, what changes might you make to how you (1) engaged in the design activity, and (2) worked together as a team?
8. Have each team share their reflections to the class.