Time: You will have 7 minutes to use your imagination to create a maze and practice using it, and up to 2 minutes to run a marble through the maze.

Set-up: On a table are materials your team can use to create a maze.

Procedure:

Part One, 7 minutes. Using the box and materials that are provided, create a maze that uses as much time as possible to roll a marble through it. Plan to have the box stand up on one of its sides. Put a hole for the marble in the upper left corner. You may practice with the marble and make changes as long as you do not destroy the box.

Part Two, 2 minutes. Stand the box up on one of its sides. Insert the marble in the upper left corner to begin its journey. The marble needs to roll to the lower right corner as slowly as possible. Once the marble has begun its run, no part of a team member’s body may touch either the box or the marble.

Materials:

• flat box without lid
• 25 craft sticks
• 10 pipe cleaners
• roll of masking tape
• scissors (may not be part of the solution)
• marble (may not be altered)

Scoring: You will receive
A. 10 points for rolling the marble successfully to the end of the maze
B. 5 points for every 10 seconds (rounded to the nearest 5 sec.) that the marble continues to roll (60 points max.)
C. Up to 15 points for the creativity of your maze
D. Up to 15 points for how well your team works together

This Instant Challenge is licensed by Students for a Creative Iowa under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.