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    Home » Primary Science » Key Stage 1 Science » Marshmallow Towers – Engineering Challenge

    Marshmallow Towers – Engineering Challenge

    March 15, 2012 By Emma Vanstone 21 Comments

    When I brought out the spaghetti and marshmallows I think my children thought we were having some kind of weird and wonderful dinner, not building structures.

    This is a great activity for children of most ages as you can tailor it to their understanding. I let my 2 year old just build whatever she wanted, and she had a great time working out how to put the spaghetti in the right places. With my 4 year old we were a bit more structured and tried to build a tower.

    Older children can think carefully about which shapes are strong shapes and will support their structure the best.

    Marshmallow and spaghetti tower
    Marshmallow Tower

    How to build a marshmallow tower

    You’ll need

    Spaghetti ( uncooked! )

    Marshmallows

    Instructions

    Snap the spaghetti into smaller pieces.

    Push the ends of the spaghetti into the marshmallows to build different shapes for your tower.

    We started with a cube but when we put weight (Pooh bear in our case) on, it started to lean very precariously to the right and one of the spaghetti vertical pieces snapped.  We then discussed what we would do to make it stronger. We decided to add some diagonal pieces which seemed to do the trick.

    Marshmallow and spaghetti tower for an engineering challenge

    We thought it would then be quite good fun to try lots of different shapes to see if we could break them.  Straight lines and marshmallow corners tend to lead pretty much to triangles but we had a lot of fun with other shapes too.

    Extension task

    Make it a game. Challenge friends or family to see who can build the tallest tower!

    Try small and then giant marshmallows. Which are easiest to build with?

    Stable structure secrets

    Triangles are great for making a stable structure.

    Consider where the centre of gravity is in your tower. A wide base helps with stability giving a centre of gravity low down and central.

    More engineering challenges

    Discover why domes are so strong with this egg shell bridge!

    Build a famous monument with newspaper!

    Build bridges with different shaped paper and card to investigate which is the strongest!

    Frugal fun for Boys and Girls has a fantastic LEGO bridge building challenge you might like too!

    Last Updated on April 27, 2022 by Emma Vanstone

    « Preschool Science Experiment – Wet and Dry
    Stability of Structures »

    Safety Notice

    Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.

    These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Kelly

      March 15, 2012 at 8:18 am

      My son would also think spaghetti and marshmellows would make a great dinner!

      Reply
    2. Laura @ You, me & the mindee's

      March 15, 2012 at 9:32 am

      Looks great fun, my 2yo would love this. Will definitely be trying it out x

      Reply
    3. Actually Mummy...

      March 15, 2012 at 9:43 am

      GG and her class did this not long ago. The marshmallows looked a bit grubby by the time they were finished, and gradually the structures were missing bits! I hate to think what got consumed in the end!

      Reply
    4. maryanne @ mama smiles

      March 15, 2012 at 10:36 am

      My kids love doing this, although we’ve always used toothpicks instead of pasta. Love the extra challenge pasta adds!

      Reply
    5. sunnymama

      March 15, 2012 at 11:01 am

      This looks fun! 🙂

      Reply
    6. Susan Case

      March 15, 2012 at 12:09 pm

      Wonderful idea on the marshmallows!

      Reply
      • ScienceSparks

        March 16, 2012 at 2:38 pm

        Thank you

        Reply
    7. Shiloh

      March 15, 2012 at 5:18 pm

      What a fun experiment! Were the marshmallows fresh? How many did you guys eat in the process? That would be my biggest problem.:)

      Reply
      • ScienceSparks

        March 16, 2012 at 2:38 pm

        they were fresh, but older might work better? We ate uhm…several 🙂

        Reply
    8. @BlueBearWood

      March 15, 2012 at 8:12 pm

      Great fun. I’d have to buy 4 times the amount. 1 to build and 3 for the girls to eat!!

      Reply
      • ScienceSparks

        March 16, 2012 at 2:38 pm

        ha ha, we did go through a lot!

        Reply
    9. RockerMom

      March 16, 2012 at 1:26 pm

      We did this a few weeks ago. We used mini marshmallows and toothpicks. The large marshmallows seem like they’d work better and the variations in possible lengths of the spaghetti would lead to more possibilities. Thanks for sharing!!

      Reply
    10. Angela

      March 16, 2012 at 5:12 pm

      My kindergarten did this a few weeks ago with toothpicks and marshmallows. The structure she made was so amazing! And she had a great time doing it too. I was delighted to receive a full explanation of how the structure she made works and how she added supports in different places to make it strong!

      Reply
    11. Jamie H

      March 17, 2012 at 4:34 pm

      Looks like fun! Knowing my girls though, they’d try to eat everything (including the raw spaghetti) before they actually made anything!

      Reply
    12. Ticia

      March 22, 2012 at 8:48 pm

      We did this before with toothpicks, but the extra challenge of pasta is kind of intriguing.

      Thanks for linking to Science Sunday!

      Reply
    13. Carrie

      March 23, 2012 at 1:09 am

      Oh, how fun!! Reminds me of my days teaching geometry. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!

      Reply

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