{"id":207559,"date":"2023-07-21T14:34:18","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T14:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/?p=30877"},"modified":"2024-04-04T02:42:41","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T06:42:41","slug":"foundations-of-engineering-class-participates-in-the-marshmallow-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/07\/foundations-of-engineering-class-participates-in-the-marshmallow-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Foundations of Engineering Class Participates in the &#8220;Marshmallow Challenge&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Students enrolled in the spring 2023 semester course ENG 1166: Foundations of Engineering recently participated in the &#8220;Marshmallow Challenge.&#8221; As part of this exercise in design, testing, teamwork, and time management, students pair off to build a self-supporting tower in just 18 minutes, using only uncooked spaghetti, masking tape, and dental floss. A marshmallow must be affixed at the top. Prizes are awarded to the team(s) with the highest stably mounted marshmallow, and separately for the most creative design(s).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This was an in-class engineering design problem that required students to work in teams and come up with a few design iterations for the spaghetti tower,&#8221; explained Fayekah Assanah, assistant professor in residence of biomedical engineering, and one of the course instructors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>ENGR 1166 consists of 400 first-year students from all engineering fields. Students are divided into two sections of 200 students in each lecture held inside the new Science 1 building&#8217;s active learning classroom. Donning a chef hat for fun, Bryan Huey, department head and professor of materials science and engineering, served as the competition&#8217;s judge.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_contentpasted0\">Additional photos of the event are below:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/MM_20230124_191142540-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30878 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/MM_20230124_191142540-copy-1024x574.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"574\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/574;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7204-copy-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30889 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7204-copy-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/683;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7263-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30879 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7263-copy-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/682;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7291-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30880 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7291-copy-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/682;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7152-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30881 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7152-copy-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/682;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7067-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30882 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7067-copy-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/682;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7214-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30883 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7214-copy-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/682;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7216-copy-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30884 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7216-copy-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/683;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7287-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30885 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7287-copy-1024x691.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"691\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/691;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7044-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30886 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7044-copy-1024x675.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"675\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/675;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7034-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30887 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7034-copy-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/682;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7299-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30896 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowers_7299-copy-1024x691.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"691\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/691;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowerpano.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30897 img-responsive lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.engr.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/marshmallowtowerpano-1024x289.jpg\" alt=\"marshmallow challenge at uconn\" width=\"1024\" height=\"289\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/289;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students pair off to build a self-supporting tower in just 18 minutes, using only uncooked spaghetti, masking tape, and dental floss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":212065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2514],"class_list":["post-207559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-13 07:12:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212066,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207559\/revisions\/212066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/212065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207559"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=207559"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=207559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}