The Marshmallow Design Challenge
please click on the slideshow below.
Tom Wujec presents some surprisingly deep research into the "marshmallow problem" — a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average? Watch this video to find out the value of the experience of this simple Marshmallow design challenge.
Every project has its own marshmallow, isn’t it?
The story behind the name, Marshmallow Minds
We were at Franz Joseph, New Zealand last Christmas. Unusually warm and clear skies… We were going on a hike by a riverside. Surprisingly, no one was there except us…not even a sheep! (Interesting facts: The human population of New Zealand is 4.5M out of which 1.5M of them live in Auckland! The rest of them are scattered all over the country. By the way, there are 28M sheep! ) There were lots of rocks on the river bed; the clear skies reminded of California blue skies; the sun was beaming; the water was free-flowing; the snow-capped mountains were standing tall and majestic and of course, there were lots of greenery to please one’s eyes. I was so inspired by the creations of God that I decided to meditate on one of those rocks. The gushing water dashing against the rocks and the whistling winds, all seemed to be in sync and accompanied my meditative music.
After the hike, it was time for a nice hot chocolate drink. Not a single place we went to, served hot chocolate without marshmallows! While in the US, it’s always hot chocolate with whipped cream, in NZ, it was hot chocolate with marshmallows on the side. As I was enjoying my cup of hot chocolate, I had a sudden recollection of the Marshmallow Design Challenge that we worked on at Stanford, as part of the SAPM(Stanford Advanced Project Management) course. Then I looked at the two marshmallows on my plate….the dots connected. With a smile, I slipped those marshmallows into my cup.
“I believe it is destiny that brought me closer to you, Marshmallow. I bet it’s going to be a sweet journey with many inspiring Minds!”
(Posting by Harini Senthilvasan, Founder & CEO, Marshmallow Minds)