Up For A Challenge #3-- Cup Holder

You can find the this challenge and more at Delightful Learning blog. The original challenges were submitted each week. Since then the links have changed so I have removed them from this post. Visit here to see more about these fun challenges.

The challenge for the day: create a structure that will hold two cups off the table surface and as far apart as possible.

Dad joins the fun-- really, he saved the day when he came home from work and was drafted to help out. Today's activity was lacking a little in cooperation. View from the window. :) It appears that all is going well.

When the time hit 7 minutes, they were not quite ready. It took a few more seconds to get the structure ready for weight- and, really, if we used plastic cups as the materials list instructed instead of Styrofoam, the cups may have been too heavy for the structure.

By Mark's expression, I'd say that he is not confident in the ability of the structure to hold the cups. :)

A view from under the structure.
The base.

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We plan to have a "redo" on this challenge- it is the opinion of the boys and their dad that we purchased inferior straws. (even to me they seemed very soft)

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I allowed the boys to score themselves and evaluate how they did. While they agreed that their team work was lacking, they gave themselves a pretty generous score. ;)

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Scoring:

10 pts. if you have a structure at the end of round one: the boys gave themselves 10pts.

20 pts. for how creatively your team used the materials: 20 pts.

1 pt. for each inch each cup is from the floor: 22 pts.

2 pts. for each inch the cups are apart: 6 pts.

Up to 20 pts for how well your team works together: there was a bit of disagreement here- Paul (11yo) gave the team 10 pts., Mark (9yo) gave the team 15 pts., James (6yo) gave his team a solid 20 pts. Before Dad joined the team, I'd say 10 was generous, but with dad 15 or better was probably not far off. ;)