Hi, this is Svenja Lohner form Science Buddies. In this video, we will show you how to transform
gingerbread house building from a fun activity into an awesome STEM challenge! We will also
show ways you can modify the challenge to make it easier or harder.
The basic challenge is simple - design and build a gingerbread house that won't fall
over. That sounds easy, but it can take a little problem solving to make sure you don't
end up with a crumbly sticky mess.
Let's break it down into three engineering steps: 1. designing, 2. building, and 3. testing.
Step one is designing the gingerbread house. [Slide should say Step 1: Designing]
Start by setting a few basic criteria for the gingerbread house you will build. For
example: • The house must have four walls and a roof
• The house must stand upright If you want to make it more challenging, you
can add additional criteria like the house must:
• Have a chimney • Have cut-out windows
• Have a balcony • Include at least one circle, rectangle,
square, and triangle • Be at least two floors tall
• Or have any other architectural features you choose!
If you want to make this gingerbread house building challenge a competition, you can
assign points for different design elements and costs for various building materials.
Who can design a gingerbread house with the highest score?
Once the design requirements are clear, sketch your gingerbread house plan.
Next, it is time to build the gingerbread house. [Slide should say Step 2: Building]
Lay out the building materials. Using graham crackers in place of gingerbread can be a
huge time saver. You will need royal icing to use as glue to stick everything together
and an assortment of candies for decoration. Think about what you need to do first to build
your gingerbread house. In what order should you put together your
walls, roof, and other architectural elements? How can you stabilize your house as you build
it? Use piping bags with tips or resealable plastic
bags with a corner cut off to apply royal icing to hold your house together.
As you work, review your gingerbread house. Does it meet all design criteria?
The final step before decorations can begin is testing your gingerbread house. [Slide
should say Step 3: Testing]
Testing can be as simple as making sure your gingerbread house stands up and doesn't fall
over when you're done building it. If you want to add more difficulty, you can do a
stability test and use a shake table to simulate earthquakes of different strengths. Or you
can use a fan or hair dryer to simulate a hurricane. Can your gingerbread house withstand
these forces?
Don't get frustrated if your house collapses while building or falls apart during testing.
Testing and observing your design allows you to identify weak spots that can be fixed.
Maybe you need to add more icing to hold your pieces together or you need to add structural
support to certain features. The process of repeatedly designing, building, and testing
is called iteration and is used by real engineers to find the best possible design solution!
Once you have the structure of your gingerbread house stable, it is time to decorate it! You
will have to be careful to make sure that your house remains stable even as you load
it up with different candies.
After you are finished, if all the materials you used are safe to eat, you can even eat
your creation!
If you want to add more learning to your Gingerbread House Building STEM Challenge, try:
• Calculating the area or the volume of your house,
• Identifying all the geometrical shapes in your design, or
• Creating a tessellating roof pattern
You can find written instructions to this challenge as well as suggestions for gingerbread
house design requirements, scoring, and budgets, linked in the description below this video.
You can also find thousands of other science and engineering projects for school, home,
or just for fun on our website at www.sciencebuddies.org.