General

Spaghetti, tape, marshmallows and a hands-on lesson in engineering 

The challenge seems straightforward: build the tallest free-standing structure possible out of 20 pieces of uncooked spaghetti, a yard each of tape and string, and one standard-sized marshmallow. 

But as scores of eastern Nebraska fifth graders learned recently, there are dozens of ways to approach the problem. Students participating in OPPD’s Marshmallow Challenge tried all sorts of structures, earning points for height and creativity. 

This year’s winners for tallest tower are are members of the Baby Chicken team from St. Margaret Mary Catholic School in Omaha, with a tower 33¾ inches tall. 

The second-tallest tower, at 33 inches, came from the La Bomboclats team at Humboldt Table Rock Steinauer Public Schools in Humboldt. The third-tallest, at 27 inches, was made by the By 100 Milliseconds team from St. Margaret Mary. Another group from that school, the Pringle.com team, won the Most Creative award. 

“I think one thing everyone gets out of it is teamwork and problem-solving,” said Genevieve Nassa, the teacher of the winning students at St. Margaret Mary. “It pushes them to communicate with each other and make real-time adjustments to their work.” 

Nassa said she’s careful not to give her students their instructions until right before the assignment starts. That prevents students from researching ahead of time using Google or artificial intelligence. That forces them to brainstorm creatively and on the fly. 

“Every group does it a little differently,” she said. “Some of them jump right into it. Others sketch it out to see what might work for them. It really brings their engineering mind to the forefront. 

Planning, design and creativity

The annual Marshmallow Challenge, sponsored by the OPPD Society of Engineers (OSE), helps students flex their planning and design skills and tests their creativity.  

On a much simpler and smaller scale, the activity simulates the kind of work OPPD engineers tackle daily: planning and designing a strong, resilient structure to meet a specific need while making the most of limited resources. 

For OPPD, the work translates into new circuits, power plants and other infrastructure that helps make Nebraska’s electric grid more resilient, efficient and sustainable. 

“We want to provide an opportunity for kids to feel like engineers,” said Xander Schmit, an OPPD distribution planning engineer. He’s an OSE member who helped coordinate the contest. “By sponsoring this challenge, we’re challenging them to think in ways they’re not always used to thinking.” 

Schmit said he found it interesting that the participating students generally came up with two or three types of structures. 

Nassa said the students “love, love, love” the challenge because it allows them to do hands-on work. 

“I really hope OPPD continues this program,” she said. “It’s huge.”