- 5 pipe cleaners (which were half the size of a regular-length pipe cleaner)
- 1 pumpkin containter
- 2 pieces of string, each 1 yard in length
- Handful of Straw Builders and connectors (I did not put a limit on the number of these)
- Marbles
- They could not cut the string or pipe cleaners
- They could not use the small handle of the pumpkin container
- The elevator had to hold the pumpkin container and had to be able to be raised and lowered with ONE string
- The pumpkin container had to be able to hold marbles
- The elevator had to be free standing (students could not hold it while raising the pumpkin)
The students did not hesitate to build, rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, and then rebuild again to create a functional pumpkin elevator. What was amazing to me was that there was very little "copying" of other elevators - each group had their own ideas and everyone was different. We asked the students to see how many marbles their pumpkin elevator could lift and I think the group that had the most was 31. I was pretty amazed because once they started adding weight, the Straw Builders would flex and sometimes tip over. In talking with one group that almost had a cross shape to their elevator, they shared that they designed it that way to balance the weight of their structure because it kept tipping over. How clever!