Tallest towers. Egg drops. Marble runs. These five challenges use nothing but paper, tape, and cardboard — and they're some of the most engaging engineering activities you can run in the final weeks of school. Listen in to get all five challenges with their criteria and constraints, understand why iteration is the part you can't skip, and hear why building kids' experiences with engineering — even outside your standards — is never wasted time.

No budget. No specialty supplies. No excuses. In this episode Nicole walks through five paper, tape, and cardboard STEM challenges you can run in the next few weeks, explains what makes each one real engineering (not just a fun build), and makes the case for why end-of-year activities that fall outside your curriculum standards still matter more than you might think.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• All five challenges — Tallest Tower, The Bridge, Marble Run, Egg Drop, and Windproof Wall — with criteria, constraints, and what kids are actually figuring out in each one
• Why criteria and constraints are what separate a real engineering challenge from just building something
• The one challenge you should protect extra time for — and why the iteration loop is where the real learning happens
• Why the Egg Drop is actually a great entry point for talking about engineering in the real world (think: NASA, limited resources, and what it means when you can't just test again)
• Why activities outside your standards still build something valuable — and how background knowledge shows up in unexpected places

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