(This post was written by Rachel and Chloe)
How did we get the idea?
We got this idea from our classmate Rachel. She did a great post about it on her blog, “Rachel S. Science Success!”
Marshmallow Popper
What we learned the first time we made them. (What attitudes of success did we need to use?)
We learned from our first attempt, that when you put the balloon around the cup the cup would collapse and wrinkle. We also learned that we might need bigger balloons to fit around the cup because the smaller ones were breaking.
The traits that we used:
- Curiosity~ We had to be curious about what might work and what might not and what we could do better or fix next time.
- Perseverance~ We used a lot of perseverance because the first time most of the poppers would not work and we ran out of time. But the second time we did not give up and fixed them.
- Adaptability~ Our class had to adapt when the marshmallows we shot in class kept hitting the walls. So we had to adapt and not shot them in class but schedule a time to use the auxiliary gym to shoot them and see whose could go the farthest.
Bonus Trait:
- Teamwork~ We helped each other a lot when we were doing this project. An example of this is we helped hold the cups for each other when they were putting on the balloon.
What did we do differently the second time we made them?
The second time we made the poppers, we had different balloons so that they would fit over the cup better. We also cut only a small, penny sized hole at the bottom of the cup, and not the whole bottom so that the cup would keep its shape and the balloon would be easier to fit over it.
Here is a video showing the activity, with some of thoughts about it:
How we tested them out in the gym. How did different ones work? What did we learn from the testing? What was the longest launch?
After we made our second marshmallow poppers, we tested them out in the auxiliary gym by lining everybody up against the wall and everyone took turns shooting a marshmallow out of their popper. After the marshmallow landed, we had a student mark where it landed with a piece of tape and wrote their name on the tape. The longest launch was Chloe’s popper – her marshmallow went 38 feet!
What did we learn overall? What did we think of the activity?
We learned that it takes a lot of adaptability to accomplish something as little as a marshmallow popper. It also takes a lot of perseverance because we didn’t give up when our first poppers did not work very well. We thought that this activity was very fun and a good way to wake us up in the morning! We also learned that a small little thing can take a lot of work and really makes you think.
