The Marshmallow Challenge

The Marshmallow Tower challenge deserves mention. It's an exercise in problem solving and teamwork. 

The goal is to build the highest, free-standing tower as a team in 18 minutes. 

Items for Each Team

1 Marshmallow

Any marshmallow brand should be fine as long as they are standard size, measuring around an inch and a half across. Jumbo or mini marshmallows don't work very well, so avoid those. Also, use fresh marshmallows as stale ones are likely not to have the same fluffiness.

20 Sticks of Spaghetti

Obviously, the spaghetti should be uncooked. Use regular spaghetti instead of thicker or thinner types. As a hint, there are about 380 sticks of spaghetti in a one-pound box (or 420 sticks in a 500g box).

1 Yard of String

The participants will use the string to connect the spaghetti sticks. The string should be reasonably flexible and easy to break with hand. For more rigid strings, you can include a pair of scissors.

1 Yard of Masking Tape

Typically, people tape the spaghetti sticks to the table to stabilize the structure. Some use it to bind sticks together. Any standard masking tape should do the job. Similarly to the string, it should be easy to break the tape with hand, but feel free to include scissors.

Kindergarten students have outperformed adults.  

What's the 'secret lesson' of the Challenge? Work together and take as many 'iterations' (versions) of the tower as possible. Don't set up committees and flow charts. Build the thing. 

Volleyball is the same. "Do more of what works and less of what doesn't." Pipe attacks and one-handed reverse setter dumps are cool, but not necessary to win. 

How will Coach Celli assemble the MVB 25 'Tower'? He'll find out how the pieces bet fit together. Meanwhile make yourself a useful component. 

Lagniappe. Looking forward to trying this recipe this week. 

Lagniappe 2. Ed Smith in "Luck" talks about how their high level cricket team attempted to dismiss the role of luck. "Abolishing luck slotted in nicely as a central plank of our philosophy. The ‘no luck’ principle was written into the Core Covenant and passed into law." Wishful thinking didn't translate into results.