“The Marshmallow challenge is among the fastest and most powerful techniques for improving a team’s capacity to generate fresh ideas, build rapport and incorporate prototyping – all of which lie at the heart of effective communication” (Tom Wujec, founder of the Marshmallow Challenge).

All of these traits are necessary to meet the challenges of the future – and that’s why they’re so important for EELISA as well. Here’s how the challenge works: In 18 minutes, a team of four people must build a free-standing tower. To do this, they are allowed to use 20 spaghetti, one meter of tape, one meter of string and one marshmallow. Whoever builds the tallest tower, as measured by the height of the marshmallow at the top, wins.

The activity will be a mix of an on-site event for FAU members in Erlangen and a social media challenge for other EELISA members. Once a team has built its tower, it will take a photo for social media and post it along with the height of the tower under the hashtag #eelisaMarshmallowChallenge.

With each posting, teams should nominate at least two other people or teams who must try to build an even taller tower. This way, the challenge should spread throughout the EELISA community. In addition, the Challenge is a fundraiser: per each centimeter, participants can donate 0.10 euros (or more) to the #FAU4Ukraine project via betterplace.org .The team with the highest tower will be rewarded with a gift that will be announced at the beginning of the challenge.

Students can build their tower anywhere, but on November 10 students will have the opportunity to come to a Helmstraße 1 (Entrance Einhornstraße) Erlangen, Ground Floor, Schulungsraum where FAU will prepare the material for the challenge and some information about EELISA. Students from other institutions will post the structure on their social media, as well as FAU students who can also participate online the rest of the days.

A detailed description of the challenge is published at the (FAU) EELISA website.

WHEN

From November 10th to 17th

WHERE

Online (FAU’s Social Media Accounts) and on-site (FAU’s campus)