The toothpick challenge

Friday morning, I was talking with the lady who coordinates the substitute teachers at the weekly professional development meeting.  She asked me on Thursday if I would be interested in earning extra money to be a sub on mornings when I'm not teaching. I of course agreed, and it wouldn't be long before I was subbing for the first time in my career. Mrs. Haulton who teaches 3D and ceramics overheard our conversation and seized the opportunity to have me sub for two of her classes that day. She looked flush indeed so I agreed to help her out. She took care of the necessary arrangements in a hurry and suddenly I found myself in her room with about five minutes before the students' arrival. I would be handling two critiques for her intro to 3D classes. I teach the same class and we have a critique coming up too, so I figured it would be good practice for me, plus I could use the money. I figure when it comes time to consider me for a full time position, the administration should certainly take note of this effort to help the school.

I was very impressed with the outcome of many of the toothpick sculptures. The hard work was evident, and we all enjoyed having the opportunity to celebrate this achievement. The feedback that the students shared was constructive and at times pretty insightful. I must say the critique was just about as successful as any that I have been a part of at the college level. My role was facilitator. I wanted the students to do the majority of the talking, but I of course made comments about each project. I was slightly concerned that the students would be unwilling to speak up, but thankfully that did not prove to be the case. Despite the fact that these students are not familiar with me they warmed up quickly. My encouragement, and supportive style put them at ease. They knew that this would not be a situation where they would be embarrassed. Even the one student whose project was still in several pieces got something from the critique.

My 3D class block three took place over in the main building directly after Mrs. Haulton's classes. I barely made it on time going against the flow of traffic during passing period. My class is a tad behind and I told them that there would not be enough time on Friday to get through all of them, so no critique. A large handful of students breathed a sigh of relief, because they were far from finishing. However, there were many students whose projects were ready for critique. What would I have them do for an entire block? I came up with the perfect solution. Thinking of toothpicks reminded me of self proclaimed toothpick engineer, Stan Munro. I used to show this Youtube clip of him talking about his work to my middle school students. Stan worked for a museum in Syracuse, NY erecting skyscrapers and world monuments from toothpicks, dozens of them combined into one marvelous city, and all to scale. It all started for Stan in high school, when his teacher challenged him to build a structure form toothpicks that could support the weight of several textbooks. The result held the weight of his desk.

I divided the students that were finished with their projects as well as their written self reflection handouts in to five groups of four. Each student counted out 50 toothpicks. The guidelines were that they could combine their toothpicks to collaborate on a project using only toothpicks and hot glue, but they did not have to use all 200. I wanted the textbooks to be elevated at least a half inch off their desks. To the group whose project could support the most weight without collapsing, I told them I would buy them a pizza. This spurred the stragglers to get caught up and finished with their projects so they could join in, and I could work with them one on one while the groups were occupied with the challenge so it was productive and fun.

The first group had the advantage from the beginning, because they were comprised of four go-getters that finished their work efficiently and on time. They engineered an outstanding support structure, and lo and behold they won. They each made about a dozen identical pyramidal units and then combined them to make a solid base. They were very systematic and organized in their approach. The fourth group did not work as well together. Their group was comprised of four students whose projects were completed, but without as much care or attention to detail. It appeared that only two of the students in this group actually contributed to the outcome. The other two just made a mess. The result was very sloppy. They lined about a dozen toothpicks side by side and sandwiched it with gobs of hot glue, and they continued to stack more layers until it was a half inch high. It looked like an artificial s'more. I could not fault them though, they technically followed the rules, and their creation held the same weight as group one. I will award the pizza to group one and think of something else to do for the other group.

As for group two, they made what looked like six-sided stars. They stacked their toothpicks and applyied hot glue in the corners until they achieved the necessary height, but there was a flaw in this design. The space between the layers compressed under the weight, and the textbooks were no longer elevated high enough to qualify, so they lost, but I applauded their effort. Group three created four support beams from bundled toothpicks, but they wasted too much time settling on a design, and had to rush to the finish line. Their collaboration was the only one that collapsed. Group five came up with a design similar to that of group one, so they changed it up mid way through, and they also had the misfortune of being the group with the least amount of time to work on it. All of the groups that lost were good sports about it.