PalCenter Staff Friday Activities

You'll want about 30–45 minutes of prep time. Bigger tray = better demo, but also more cornstarch.

Materials list (for one communal walking tray):

• ~15 lbs cornstarch (about 6 big boxes — Walmart, Costco, or Smart & Final)
• ~8 cups water (you'll add gradually, not all at once)
• 1 large flat tray or shallow tub — kiddie pool, mortar mixing tub from Home Depot, or large under-bed storage container all work
• Plastic tablecloth on the ground around the tray
• Food coloring (optional, but it's worth it — looks great)
• Bucket of water + paper towels for cleanup
• Garbage bags for cornstarch packaging + dried oobleck

Setup steps:

1. Lay plastic tablecloth on the floor in a clear area (linoleum or concrete is ideal — avoid carpet).
2. Place the tray on the tablecloth.
3. Pour cornstarch into the tray — fill about 2/3 deep.
4. Add water slowly, mixing with your hands or a paint stirrer. The ratio is roughly 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water by volume. Add water in cups, not all at once.
5. The right consistency: when you slap it, it feels hard. When you press in gently, your fingers sink. Too watery? Add cornstarch. Too dry? Add water by the splash.
6. Add a few drops of food coloring near the end and stir in.
7. Have a bucket of clean water nearby — students will want to rinse their hands.

This is oobleck — cornstarch and water. It's a non-Newtonian fluid, which means it doesn't behave like a normal liquid. The harder you push it, the more solid it feels. Touch it gently and your fingers sink right through.

Real-world non-Newtonian fluids: ketchup (gets thinner when you shake it), quicksand, body armor used by police, and the cornstarch slurry medical researchers use to model how blood clots form.

Take off your shoes and socks. Try each of these one at a time:

• Slowly press your hand into the oobleck. What happens?
• Punch it (don't hurt yourself — it's surprisingly hard). What happens?
• Try to roll some into a ball in your hand. Stop squeezing. What happens?
• Step in slowly and stand still. Your foot will sink.
• Now try to WALK across the tray — fast steps. Can you stay on top?

The faster you move, the more solid it acts. Slow down and it's a liquid again.

Cornstarch is made of tiny solid particles suspended in water. When you press slowly, the particles slide past each other and water acts like, well, water. When you press fast, the particles jam against each other and act like a solid wall.

Engineers use this to design liquid body armor. Soak Kevlar fabric in a similar fluid and a bullet's high-speed impact instantly turns the liquid solid. Stops the bullet. Soldier walks away with bruises instead of holes.

Total time: about 90 minutes. The activity itself fills maybe 45 minutes — the rest is hands-on play, photos, cleanup.

1. First 5 min: Gather everyone around the tray. Show them the demo yourself — pour some, slap it, let them see the weird behavior. The "wow" moment sells the whole day.
2. Next 10 min: Read the Part I description out loud (or have a student read). Explain non-Newtonian. Then turn them loose.
3. Next 30 min: Open-play. Encourage everyone to take a turn walking across. Take photos. Let them get messy.
4. Mid-session: Pause once for the "why does this work?" mini-lesson (Part III). Reset everyone's attention for 3 minutes, then back to play.
5. Last 30 min: Cleanup. See cleanup section below.

• Oobleck is too runny: add more cornstarch (a few cups at a time). It should resist when you slap it.
• Oobleck is too dry / clumpy: add water by the splash, not by the cup. Easy to overshoot.
• A student says "I don't want to touch it": totally fine. Have them be the photographer, or rinse their hands right after. Don't push.
• Walking is risky for a student: let them dip a hand in instead. The demo works just as well with hands.
• Someone slips: the tray plus the tablecloth is the danger zone. Spread the tablecloth wide, and let only ONE person at a time walk in.

DO NOT pour oobleck down the drain. Cornstarch hardens in pipes and causes plumbing nightmares.

1. Scoop oobleck out of the tray into garbage bags. Double-bag if it's still wet.
2. Wipe the tray with paper towels first — most of the residue comes off this way.
3. Then rinse the tray with a damp cloth into a separate bucket (NOT the sink). Pour that bucket water outside on dirt/grass, NOT down a drain.
4. Have students rinse hands in the cleanup bucket first, then the sink. Hands shed most of the residue before tap water touches them.
5. Fold up the tablecloth from the outside in to trap any spilled oobleck. Toss it.

Materials check:

• Student Dream Home Blueprints from Thursday — should be stored together. If anyone lost theirs, have spare grid paper for them to redo a quick version.
• Spare grid paper, pencils, erasers, calculators (or phones)
• Phone/tablet/computer for cost research
• Printed copy of the cost reference table below (or open this page on a screen)

Before students arrive:

1. Find and lay out the Blueprints from Thursday on the tables.
2. Set out pencils and calculators at each seat.
3. Have this page (or the printable .docx version) open and ready.
4. Make sure WiFi works on the room's tablets/phones — students will be doing real cost lookups.

Share these with students if they're stuck. Prices are approximate ranges.

If a student says "I don't know what else to add," throw these at them:

• Indoor basketball half-court · Skate ramp in the garage · Backyard treehouse · Trampoline room
• Recording studio · Gaming room · Streaming/podcast setup · Home theater with reclining seats
• Indoor pool · Hot tub · Sauna · Cold plunge tub · Steam shower
• Pizza oven · Sushi bar · Walk-in pantry · Wine cellar · Built-in espresso machine
• Library with rolling ladder · Reading nook with skylight · Window seats throughout
• Pet wash station · Built-in pet beds · Catio (cat patio)
• Indoor greenhouse · Living plant wall · Garden room
• Walk-in closet with island · Shoe wall · Built-in vanity
• Spiral staircase · Sliding library ladder · Hidden room behind a bookshelf
• Rooftop deck · Outdoor kitchen · Fire pit · Outdoor movie projector
• Smart everything — fridge with screen, voice-controlled lights, automated blinds
• Tesla solar roof · Battery wall · EV charging · Off-grid backup power

• Frozen on features: "Tell me one thing in a house you've seen that you love. Anything. We'll put it in yours."
• Can't think of dream items: "Picture your favorite restaurant or store. What do they have that you'd want in your house?"
• Can't find a price online: "Look at the cost ranges I have here — pick something in that range. Or call it 'somewhere in this range' and move on."
• Worried their total is too big: "Your total can be anything. $500K, $5 million, $50 million. People build homes at every price. The number isn't the point — the dream is."
• Doesn't know where to search: "Try Home Depot for flooring. Best Buy for electronics. Tesla.com for solar. Look at HomeAdvisor for installation prices."

The math is simple addition + one multiplication. Walk students through this template on their Blueprint:

1. Base house construction (sq ft × $250)
2. + Flooring (price per sq ft × sq ft)
3. + Kitchen amenities (sink, fridge, stove, dishwasher, etc.)
4. + Bathroom amenities (sinks, toilets, tubs, showers)
5. + Lighting + paint
6. + HVAC + doors + windows
7. + Landscaping
8. + Dream features (sum of every feature on their menu)
9. = Subtotal
10. × 1.15 (15% contingency)
11. = FINAL DREAM HOME COST

Total session: 3 hours.

1. First 10 min: Greet students, hand back their Blueprints from Thursday, get them re-oriented. Project the Friday Architecture student page on screen.
2. Next 90 min: Research time. Students fill in missing prices using their phones/tablets. Walk around constantly. Use the dream features menu and the cost reference table to help anyone stuck.
3. Next 30 min: Total it up. This is the math. Help any student who's struggling with the addition or the 15% multiplication. (15% means multiply by 1.15. Or: add 15% of the subtotal to the subtotal.)
4. Last 30 min: Share-out. Each student takes ~90 seconds: holds up their Blueprint, names their favorite feature, reveals their final cost. Applaud everyone.
5. Last 10 min: One-word reflection. Close out. Students keep their Blueprints.

📄 Want a printable version of this Architecture cheat sheet?
Download PAL_Friday_Architecture_StaffCheatSheet.docx from the Woven Drive folder.

The point of this workshop isn't the math, or even the house. It's that these students — who may have never been asked "what would you put in your dream home?" — got to dream big and put a real number on it. If a student leaves today saying "my dream home costs $4 million" with a smile, you nailed it.

The whole point of "shared materials pile": instead of pre-packing materials for each challenge separately (which takes hours), all materials go in one giant pile on a central table. Teams grab what they need.

The shared pile (one big table or set of bins):

• Cardboard — pre-cut into various sizes, plus larger sheets. Heavy bias toward having LOTS.
• Paper — printer paper + newspaper + cardstock (at least 100 sheets total)
• Masking tape — 6+ rolls. Teams burn through tape fast.
• Scissors — at least 5 pairs
• Rulers — at least 5
• Pencils + markers — for sketching designs
• Books for load testing — borrow from PAL library, 8–10 hardcover books
• 1 lb dry spaghetti (Challenge 1 only)
• 1 bag standard marshmallows (Challenge 1 only)
• Rubber bands (Challenge 15 — One Component)
• String / twine (Challenge 15)
• Optional: small motors, weights, or springs — for Challenge 15 if you have them lying around

Before students arrive:

1. Put all shared materials on one big central table. Mix sizes of cardboard around so teams can grab what they want.
2. Set up 4–5 separate work tables/areas, each with chairs for teams.
3. Put the load-testing books on the floor in one corner — that becomes the "testing zone."
4. Have this page projected on screen so students can see all 4 challenges.
5. Bring snacks if PAL allows. Last day vibes.

Mission: Build the tallest free-standing tower you can in 18 minutes using only 20 strands of spaghetti and 1 meter of masking tape. The whole marshmallow has to sit on top for 15 seconds, hands-off.

Why it's hard: Spaghetti is strong straight up, but snaps when bent. The marshmallow is heavier than students expect. Most teams fail because they put the marshmallow on at the very end and the whole thing collapses.

Score: height in cm from floor to bottom of marshmallow.

Mission: Build a table from rolled paper tubes and masking tape that can hold a heavy book at least 15 cm off the ground for 1 full minute. Table must stand on its own legs.

The trick: Paper rolled into tight tubes is shockingly strong in compression. Flat paper is weak. Three or four leg tubes with cross-bracing usually wins.

Score: heaviest book held for 1 minute. Bonus for height.

Mission: Build a cardboard machine that does a task (stamps paper, rings a bell, turns a page, flicks a marble — student picks) using exactly ONE active component (one rubber band OR tape OR binder Clips OR balloons OR cardstock OR craft foam OR pool noodles OR yarn OR marbles OR popsicle sticks OR paper clips OR skewers OR straws OR one weight). Everything else has to be structural. The machine must run more than once without rebuilding.

The trick: Engineers love constraints. The fewer moving parts, the fewer ways something breaks. Students who pick a SIMPLE task and build great structure around their one moving part always beat students who pick a complex task.

Score: number of times it runs successfully in 60 seconds without intervention.

Mission: Design a cardboard structure that gradually collapses when overloaded — not all at once. The structure must stand on its own before testing, and the collapse has to be visible (a warning before total failure).

The trick: Real engineers design HOW things fail (cars have crumple zones; bridges have sacrificial cables). Students build in a weak point — a pre-cut tab, a folded crease, a thinner column — that fails first, on purpose.

Score: 1 point for graceful (gradual) collapse, 0 for catastrophic failure.

Total session: 3 hours.

1. First 10 min: Welcome them back. Walk them through the four challenges briefly — read the mission for each. Don't over-explain.
2. Next 10 min: Teams form (2–3 students each). Each team picks a challenge. Multiple teams can pick the same one — encourage that. Teams settle at their work tables.
3. Next 90 min: Build and test. Walk around. Help when needed but resist the urge to solve their problems. Ask questions like "What's failing?" or "What would happen if you…"
4. Next 30 min: Test runs. Each team demos their build in the testing zone. Other teams watch. Cheer for everyone.
5. Last 30 min: Group photo + reflection. Each student says one word about the whole summer (Slime, Foley, Wild Rivers, Wind Tunnel, Elephant Toothpaste, Architecture, Sphero, Suturing, Open Lab, today). Take a group photo with their builds.

Some teams will finish their challenge early. Two options: (1) start a second challenge with the time remaining, or (2) help another team. Both are fine.

• Team can't decide on a challenge: ask which one's the most fun-sounding. Don't let them spend more than 5 minutes deciding.
• Team's build keeps failing: resist solving. Ask: "What broke first? What if you made that part stronger?" Most builds work after 2–3 fail cycles.
• Materials hoarding: one team has all the tape. Walk over and say "share with the table behind you." Most kids will.
• A student is being too quiet / not participating: hand them a specific small job. "Can you cut those strips for them?" Gets them involved without forcing engagement.
• One student is dominating their team: ask a question to a quieter teammate directly. "What do you think we should try next?"
• Spaghetti runs out: only one box per Spaghetti Tower team — about 20 strands. Tell them this is a constraint, not a problem. Real engineers don't get to ask for more steel.

📖 For full background on each challenge — including videos, brainstorm prompts, and career connections — see the full pages at woven-engineering-challenges.vercel.app. Challenges 1, 7, 15, and 16 are the ones you're running today.

This is the last day of the program. Make the closing meaningful. The students just spent two weeks doing chemistry, robotics, architecture, surgery, sound design, foreign language translation, and engineering. That's not nothing. Tell them so.

Take the group photo. Send copies to the kids if you can. Thank everyone by name if there's time.