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active challenge:

marble madness

Suggested Ages: K – 5th Grades

It’s time to get the ball rolling! In this challenge you’ll need to work as a team to get a marble into the bucket as quickly as possible. To do this you’ll need to BE COLLABORATIVE by communicating effectively with your teammates and sharing ideas about how to improve each round.

Active Challenge: Fun, movement-oriented games and activities to spark innovation and creativity

This is no ordinary DIY activity for kids: It’s a step toward becoming an innovator.

 

Every Galileo Active Challenge gets kids moving and teaches the same mindsets that professional designers, engineers, artists and athletes use in their work. With skills like these, we believe you can change the world.

Get Involved—For Grown Ups

Materials list:

Help your child find these materials or a close substitute: 

 

  • Thin cardboard like from a cereal box
  • A ruler
  • Scissors
  • Marble or other small ball (like a ping pong ball)
  • Small container for the marble to fall into at the end
  • Timer

 

Activity GUIDE:

Refer to these steps to keep young innovators on track as they play:

 

1.  Create 1 track per player—help with cutting and measuring as necessary (Timestamp).

 

2.  Decide on the start and end of the course.

 

3.  Get the ball into the bucket using only your tracks.

  • Support being collaborative—If kids are having trouble working together, facilitate to help them communicate clearly and kindly.
  • Ask: How can you help your teammates right now?
  • Ask: What can your teammates do to help you right now?

 

4.  Evaluate and re-strategize after the round

  • Support being collaborative—If kids are having trouble agreeing on a plan, remind them that it’s not about who’s idea is better. If an idea works, everyone wins!
  • Ask: Tell me about your partner’s idea. How might you combine that with your own to make an even better plan?
  • Ask: What idea do you want to try next? (You can try another idea after.)

 

5.  Play again to try to beat your time!

 

More Ideas:

Every project presents opportunities to add your own twists or extensions. Here are some ideas to get you started: 

 

  • Level Up! Once you master the basic course, invent new obstacles and challenges to try. For example, going through a chair or using smaller tracks.
  • Innovate On! Make up other games you can play with balls and the tracks you’ve made.

 

Wrap Up Questions:

Lock in the learning by asking kids these questions about their activity and how they practiced the featured Innovator’s Mindset element: 

 

  • What was most challenging about this game? What did you like most?
  • How did you and your teammates collaborate during this game? How did you help the team? How did your teammates help you? Did you share ideas to come up with a strategy that worked?

SHARE!

The last step in the Gallieo Innovator’s Process is SHARE. Great learning can come from sharing successes and failures—to solidify your own experience as an innovator and to inspire others.

 

SHARE WITH galileo

 

Share a photo or video of you playing Marble Madness with the Camp Galileo Anywhere Facebook Community.

 

Share with family and friends

 

Your innovation doesn’t stop with you. Inspire someone else by sharing your project challenge—maybe they’ll try it themselves or maybe your project will give them a new idea.

 

  • Who: someone in your house, a family member, a friend
  • How: in person, on the phone, online
  • When: anytime, starting now!