Marshmallow Challenge

Introduction

The Marshmallow Challenge is a popular short exercise that gives small teams a shared experience of completing a project within 18 minutes, and draws attention to the need to constantly adjust our underlying assumptions, in this case, how will a spaghetti structure counteract gravity when suspending a relatively heavy marshmallow on the top.

This exercise as seen on Tom Wujec's TED Talk has been modified slightly to ask one half of a group of attendees to perform a deterministic approach to completing the task, and the other half an empirical approach to completing the task.

The resulting conclusions, then provides a compare and contrast between the two approaches which are recorded by the attendees.

Learning Objectives

• To experience the differences between deterministic and empirical approaches to delivering a project

Materials

• 1 x pack of ordinary spaghetti
• 1 x roll of masking tape
• At least one large, (or 3 x small) marshmallows per team of 2-3 people
• Large timer e.g. projected onto a wall
• (Optional) Printed set of task cards, enough for half of the group to do a deterministic approach and half the group to do an empirical approach
• Printed conclusions worksheet per team
• Pens and paper for half of the group doing the deterministic task

Timings

• 10 Minutes for setup and introduction
• 18 Minutes to carry out the task
• 5 Minutes to share some observations
• 6 Minutes to watch a short video
• 10 Minutes to complete the conclusions worksheet

Workshop Flow

Connections

1. Ask the attendees to arrange themselves into teams of 2s or 3s
2. Ask each of the teams to collect some equipment:
   • 20 sticks of spaghetti
   • 1 metre of masking tape
   • 1 large, (or 3 x small) marshmallows

Concepts

1. Once the teams are all settled back, then provide half of the group with deterministic task cards, and half of the group with empirical task cards
2. Allow the teams 5 mins to digest the new information and understand the task, and ask if there are any questions before they start

Concrete Practice

1. Start the timer and allow the teams to do their tasks
2. Towards the end of the time available e.g. around the 5mins to go mark begin to increase the excitement and provide some commentary on the growing spaghetti structures.
3. When the time is up actively encourage the teams to take their hands off the structure and let it stand on its own, as they stand back and admire their creations

Conclusions

1. After the teams settle down again, usually some of the structures begin to buckle and collapse which can be quite amusing for the teams, then ask them what were their observations and what strategies led to standing structures, and what strategies didn't really help
2. After a few minutes of sharing these observations, then watch the TED talk video (TED 2010) for an amusing take on the challenge
3. Finish up with giving the teams a few minutes to complete the conclusions worksheet and record their learnings

References

1. Tom Wujec: Build A Tower, Build A Team, http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html, 2010