Marshmallow Madness Solutions

Straight from the Netherlands, some magnificent work by an anonymous 4 year old and an anonymous 6 year old!





And, more marvelous marshmallow solutions by Joshua and Jacob:





And, Mr. B did a beautiful job with his arch --




I forgot an entry. I am so sorry! It was worth the wait though; here is the massive marshmallow arch from Boo and Zee. You can read more about it here.




You should all be very proud of your creative work!!!!!!!!!

Marshmallow Madness

Last year, there was a marshmallow arch challenge. This year, Marshmallow Madness Returns.

Your materials: a bag of large marshmallows, a box of toothpicks, 2 pairs of tongs.

Your challenge: build the tallest marshmallow arch you can using the materials above, but you may not touch the marshmallows with anything but the tongs.

Good luck! Photo, video, animoto submissions all accepted!

Week Ten -- Marshmallow arches

Gabriel (8) made an awesome marshmallow arch! Way to go Gabriel!




Snufkin made a 'pink keystone' bridge with her marshmallows and Moomintroll made his by cutting the marshmallows in half and sticking the cut sides against the uncut sides. They both turned out great! Congratulations on a job well thought out!




Jaylene broke each marshmellow in half and used the sticky sides to hold it all together. Fantastic work Jaylene!



JD (age 8- in orange shirt) and Jackson (age 6, in white shirt) both made fantabulous arches. You guys should be proud!




H and T made this arch. They wanted to make a larger one but didn't have enough marshmallows. Unfortunately, the arch started to collapse when we got out the camera!




Alex started by smashing his marshmallows together. His plan was to get them sticky before he tried to build the arch. As you see, he was successful! Great job!




Charlie started by cutting his marshmallows then sculpting them into an arch. Awesome job Charlie!




Christopher, Nathan, and their mom joined in this week making arches. They all did a fantabulous job. Here's Christopher's stonehenge:



And, Nathan's arch:



And, mom's bunny arch:



Alexandra and her mom, aunt, and niece made some marshmallow arches over the holidays. Here are their awesome solutions! Check out their post here.

Halloween Candy Challenge and Week Ten

SOLUTIONS WILL BE POSTED BEGINNING WEDNESDAY.

This week we have two challenges:

1. If you have it, use 5 pieces of Halloween candy and 5 toothpicks and 2 straws to make an animal, real or imaginary. You may use scissors in construction but not in the solution. You may not use any other materials but you may use anything from your Halloween candy! If you don't have Halloween candy, use whatever you'd like to make an animal.

2. Put a bag of marshmallows (any size) on the table. Tell your students to big the biggest arch possible. They may use whatever they'd like during construction but the final arch must be made only of marshmallows. Wash your hands! Take pictures. Send them in.

Do one or both challenges. We'll post the pics for all of them!

For fun, learn about arches here.

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!