Ready...Set...Fail!
Finding the solution to a problem in a HURRY can be the most critical factor during a crisis. Consider what the ground crew at NASA had to accomplish during the Apollo 13 mission to the moon - fitting a square peg in a round hole.
Read the actual instructions that were given to the astronauts to accomplish this task: https://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-actual-hack-that-saved-the-astronauts-of-th-1598385593
Impromptu Design Competition champion
Since the Apollo 13 incident, STEAM students have been asked to solve some very simple problems using a collection of very strange materials. Given a very limited time to achieve their task, students fail to accomplish their goal more often than not. Consider this collection of odds and ends:
4 marshmallows
2 drinking straws
5 stirring sticks
2 paper clips
10 rubber bands
2 3" x 5" index cards
1 meter of masking tape
1 sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" paper
The task is to use as much of this set of materials as a team of 3 or 4 students wishes and construct a CAR that will travel the furthest when released from the top of a “hill.” Obviously, gravity is the source of propulsion for this car, so using as much of the given materials and placing the bulk of the mass towards the rear of the car will gain the most distance along the floor as potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. Simple Physics!
Pictured is a champion vehicle from a group of students who participated in what is called an Impromptu Design Competition.
Impromptu Design Challenges like the one described above provide students with opportunities to design within constraints. In much of the world, where problems exist, there are always constraints. Consider areas of the world where access to fresh water is a problem. Even consider student learning over the past couple of pandemic years. Although crippling at times, present constraints provide folks with the ability to be creative in these situations. Mission Control’s Tiger Team had limited time and could only use materials available on the spacecraft (including the astronauts’ socks!), yet these constraints drove a life-saving solution in the nick of time. In the impromptu task above, constraints like limited time and limited resources are fuel for the creative mind (present in everyone, mind you) to begin churning out ideas to test out!
But what if students fail?
What if they run out of time? What if they accidentally destroy the one piece of foil they had in order to complete their design challenge? What if there is a team disagreement that costs precious moments to slip and the team does not have a solution ready? Great questions. I would answer them with yet another question:
What are we after?
If our focus is to cultivate a process of learning through failure rather than to deliver a finished, polished, perfect product (like getting a 100% on a test), then these kinds of impromptu design challenges ought to become a regular part of students’ learning day. Who knows? They just might learn how to apply the skills and knowledge they learn in school in order to solve real problems in their own world…or even save someone’s life someday.
