Paper tower, spaghetti bridges, & egg drops, oh my!! Problem Solvers have been immersed in problems they have never solved before and we have been impressed with their thinking, collaboration, and perseverance with every challenge they have been presented. On the first day of class the problem solvers experienced their first problem – the key to the classroom was missing! The campers found clues, solved puzzles, unlocked locked boxes, worked as a team, and used conceptual skills to solve their first of many problems that VAMPY had in store for them!
From there, students worked in pairs to see who could build the tallest tower made from spaghetti and marshmallows in a set amount of time. The campers went through the full engineering design process where they were able to improve their design and try it again. Many times, students do not have the ability with time constraints and/or limited materials to try a project again to improve themselves. However, these problem solvers have been able to improve not only in spaghetti towers but with egg drops being dropped from various heights, paper towers that could hold up to 50+ textbooks, budget bridges that had the highest efficiency (weight held and total cost), and rockets that had the most airtime. Problem solvers also collected materials they found, borrowed, or reused in order to ship a chip. The campers were challenged with the problem of being able to ship a single Pringle chip. The problem is the chip has to make it back, hopefully in full form and not just Pringle dust, but with the smallest mass and volume packaging. The chips have been packaged and mailed out. Now the problem solvers wait for the arrival and opening of their single Pringle package.
While it sounds like a lot of physical building problems these problem solvers are solving, these campers have also been challenged with mind riddles and teamwork challenges. Problem solvers have worked together trying to escape alien attacks with black and white party hats and only two words, finding how many petals are around the rose, how to safely cross a bridge with a time restraint and a crew that can only walk so fast with one lantern, and safely crossing a poisonous river with magical lily pads… oh, and trying to work to get a hula hoop to the group as a team (but you may not want to bring that up to the problem solvers as they are still stumped on that problem).
As we head into the third and final week, problem solvers will take what they have learned from the past two weeks and combine them with a parachute challenge, paper airplane building, a couple of guest speakers, and wrapping up on Friday by seeing how well they protected their Pringle. Let us see what these problem solvers can do!!
