Looking for something to do with all those empty toilet paper? This at-home STEM challenge teaches teamwork and problem solving using nothing more than cardboard rolls, tape, and a marble!
Can you build a maze to successfully get a marble from start to finish?
This is a great activity to work as a team with siblings, parents, or friends (when not social distancing!) to figure out a solution. Scientists and engineers often work together in teams to solve problems. This can be really helpful because each person on the team may have different ideas that you wouldn’t have thought of by yourself. On the other hand, it can also be difficult to work with other people. Make sure to take the time to listen and communicate with your team!
Materials:
- Empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls
- Masking tape or blue painters tape
- Marble or other small ball
- Cup or bucket
- Scissors
Method:
1. Determine where your starting point will be and mark it on the wall with a piece of tape.
2. Place your cup or bucket on the floor where you want your finish to be.
3. Using the cardboard rolls and tape, build a maze from start to finish.
4. When you’re ready to test, send your marble through the maze and make observations. Did the marble successfully make it into the cup or did it fall out somewhere?
5. Make changes to your design based on your observations and test again.
Did your initial design work? It can be frustrating when something fails, but can failure actually be a good thing? Often, scientists and engineers test and observe their designs many times. From these “failures” they can learn valuable information about how to improve their design and then retest it. When you first tested your maze, what did you learn about how it failed? How could you use this information to redesign your maze to successfully get the marble from start to finish?
Note for parents: This challenge is great for kids of all ages. For younger kids, make the start and end points close together and help them tape the rolls on (but be careful not to do it all for them and let them figure things out on their own). For older kids, challenge them to go around corners or have a certain number of turns or twists in their maze.
We’d love to see your marble mazes so email us a picture at info@stemlikeagirl.org or tag us on FaceBook at @stemlikeagirl or Instagram @stemlikeagirl_PDX