Subject area: Design awareness, design process
Activity type: Teamwork, physical build
Groups: 4-5 students
Activity time: 45 minutes
Creator(s):
“Marshmallow Tower” is one of five standalone activities created for the Capturing Design Signatures resource, which focuses on design process awareness.
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.
To use this project to teach design process tracing, make sure to also choose a capture method from the Design Process Tracing page. 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:
The purpose of this activity is to allow students to engage in a low-stakes and creative team-building activity, while also using a capture method to analyze the actions they take. Through this activity, students may become more aware of their team dynamics and design processes.
This activity will help students:
“[The marshmallow tower activity] made me excited and I loved that I could reflect and connect it to design work.” — Student 1
“I really enjoyed the workshop of the marshmallow and quickly being immersed in the design process in a random object.” — Student 2
The recorder is a user researcher: In the past, we have seen that sometimes students don’t want to volunteer to be the capture method recorder. When we redefine that as a user research role, students are much more excited to take on that role. The capture method recorder does function as a user researcher, investigating their team’s behavior.
Competition rules: When building the tower, remind students not to use any shortcuts. The marshmallow has to be whole; the tower needs to be freestanding (for example, it can’t be leaning on a wall or other materials); and the towers will be measured from the table to the top of the marshmallow.
Get the right supplies! Make sure that you get regular spaghetti, not thin spaghetti, which is too weak to build a good tower with.