ECCAY RESOURCES
Exercise nr. 3
The Marshmallow Challenge
| Minimum number of participants | Average time length | Individual setting | Group setting |
Special Equipment | Unit | Online | Challenges/ competition |
| 3 (but it can be done in bigger groups if you want to use it as a challenge) | 60' | no | yes | yes | 3, 4, 5 | no | yes |
The Marshmallow Challenge (Skillman, 2006; Wujec, 2010) is a team challenge activity in which teams must compete to build the tallest free-standing structure using different materials: 20 sticks of spaghetti, one meter of tape, one meter of string, and one marshmallow.
The marshmallow must be placed on top of the structure.
It is quite a challenging activity, because it brings people in a condition where they need to collaborate together and to cope with the problems arising from the tower construction.
Participants have the opportunity to analyze effective strategies and how their mode of communication has influenced their work.
Aim / Benefits
The exercise helps explore cooperation dynamics, and reflect on the processes of mutual influence.
It also helps explore dynamics of group support and group learning.
It facilitates solution focused thinking, as participants need to develop solutions on how to create a tower that remains standing on its own in a limited period of time.
In doing this, participants need sometimes to deconstruct their way of thinking and develop or embrace alternative strategies in the tower construction.
Consequently, this activity helps practice the solution focused mindset in real life situations, where sometimes you need to make decisions very quickly.
Finally, the challenge emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, helps to explore cooperation dynamics and innovation processes within the group.
UNIT(s) related
Why?
It can be related to Unit 3, as it shows relationships as mutual influence and cooperative systems.
It can be related to Unit 4, as it helps enhance motivation and cooperation in groups, and facilitates the development of a group mindset based on solution building.
It can be related to Unit 5, as it helps self reflection, both at individual and group level.
How to do the exercise
First of all, you need to create a marshmallow challenge kit for each team.
Each kit contains 20 pieces of spaghetti, 1 meter of masking tape, 1 meter of string and 1 marshmallow.
Organize the group into teams of 3 to 6 people.
Each team should sit around a table or on the floor. The whole group should work in the same space.
Explain how the activity works and its aims.
The activity consists of building the tallest free-standing structure.
The tower is made of 20 spaghetti sticks, while the marshmallow has to be positioned on its top.
The marshmallow functions as an element that can put the tower balance in jeopardy.
It is light enough to be sustained by the tower, but can destabilize it as well.
The activity has to be done in a given set of time.
The authors suggest 18 minutes, as they say that with little time, in urgent situations, group dynamics are more easily to emerge and be evident both to the facilitator and to the participants.
The team that builds the tallest structure measured from the table’s or floor’s surface to the top of the marshmallow wins the challenge.
The tower must stand on its own at the end.
It should not hang or lean on any other objects.
Each team can use the materials at their disposal in the construction kit in the way they prefer, in order to build the tower (they can also cut them).
However, the marshmallow must be positioned at the top of the structure and it is the only thing that cannot be broken into smaller pieces.
Any team that intentionally cuts, destroys, hides or eats its marshmallow is disqualified.
Step 2:
Deliver the materials to each team and, when they are ready to start, start the countdown clock.
As they need to feel a sense of urgency, remind them of the time passing by periodically.
The authors suggest the time can be called out 12 minutes, 9 minutes (halfway), 7 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds and a ten-second countdown.
Final step / Conclusion:
Measure each structure and call out the heights as you measure.
Once you collected all the measures, proclaim the winner of the contest.
Debrief
In order to facilitate the whole group reflection and discuss their process, if you decide to apply the ECCAY framework, we suggest you to ask questions like the following:
● How did you work as a group?
● How did you distribute your roles?
● Who took the leadership in the group? Did the leader remain the same throughout all the activity? If yes, why? If not, how did the role change?
● Did you like the roles you took in doing the challenge?
● How did you successfully contribute to the teamwork? What did you do that actually helped?
● What were the resources you appreciated in your team that emerged during the exercise?
● What did you learn about yourself and the way to approach problems?
● How did your approach to problems change during the activity?
● What insights can you take from this experience that you could apply in other contexts?
● If you decided to deliberately apply the approach you used, that was helpful and effective in doing this challenge, what would be the first thing you could do?
Tips and Tricks
However, there is no hard rule for team size.
However, make sure the teams are not too big.
Groups of 3 to 6 members usually function efficiently.
Make sure you’re very clear about the goal of the exercise, as well as clearly communicating the rules.
You probably want to repeat the rules a few times; people might be playing with the ingredients and not pay enough attention.
This is why we suggest the materials be handed out to each team after having explained to them the rules, to keep people from getting distracted.
You can tell participants that this exercise is conducted by thousands of people, from kindergarten students to top managers from world-leading companies.
This can help them take it more seriously.
Please consider that the jumbo or mini marshmallows do not work very well, so avoid those.
Also, use fresh marshmallows as stale ones are likely not to have the same fluffiness.
Specific materials
- 20 Sticks of spaghetti (per group) (uncooked)
- 1 meter of string (per group)
- 1 meter of tape (per group)
- 1 paper bag or envelope (per group)
- 1 marshmallow (per group)
- Measuring Tape
- a pair of scissors
On-line version
Bibliography - Sitography
- Skillman P. (2006). Peter Skillman Marshmallow Design Challenge. TED Talk 2006, Monterey, California. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5sBzMtB3Q
- Wujec T. (2010). Build a Tower, Build a Team. TED Talk, February 2010, Monterey, California. https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower_build_a_team/transcript
- What a Marshmallow Reveals About Collaboration: https://www.inc.com/the-build-network/build-a-tower-build-a-team.html
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