Back to Schedule

Project challenge:

cardboard step stool

Suggested Ages: K – 2nd Grades

Step up to the challenge of building a cardboard stool that you can really stand on! Use the strength of paper tubes to reinforce a box, then take the COURAGEOUS first step onto your handy new creation.

Engaging Design-It-Yourself projects to inspire young innovators

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

 

Every Galileo Design-It-Yourself Challenge teaches the same techniques and mindsets that professional designers an engineers, artists and chefs use in their work. With skills like these, we believe you can change the world.

Get Involved—For Grown Ups

Materials list:

Find these materials or a close substitute: 

 

  • Small corrugated cardboard box
  • Standard paper
  • Marker
  • Tape
  • Optional (to support making paper tubes): paper towel tube. can of food

 

Activity GUIDE:

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

 

PREP SUPPORT:
If you don’t have a paper towel tube, then make a template tube that’s about 1.5″ wide. (View at 1:40)

 

ACTIVITY DETAILS:

1.  Make at least 10 tubes of paper the height of the box—Give kids a paper towel tube or the prepped paper tube template to make this easy.

 

2.  Make additional larger tubes until the box is filled—Give kids a can of food to use as a template to make this easier.

 

3.  Close up the box—If needed, help kids with this step.

 

4.  Gently step up onto the box.

  • Support being courageous—If kids are reluctant to step on the box, remind them that if it breaks it’s no big deal, and actually helpful because that will help them make their next design stronger.

 

5.  Redesign as necessary.

  • Ask: Where can you put more tubes to make your stool stronger?
  • Ask: What else might you add to your stool to make it more useful or to make it unique?

 

More Ideas:

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

 

  • Add embellishments like a handle, your name, or some drawings.
  • Draw footprints onto the side that you’re supposed to stand on (one of the sides covering the open tube ends)

 

Wrap Up Questions:

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

 

  • Was there a time when you felt nervous about stepping onto the step stool and had to be courageous? What did you learn by taking the chance to test your stool?
  • What shape makes the paper strong?

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

 

Courageously stand atop your stool, snap a photo, and share it 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!