March Madness

Challenge
NCAA March Madness is a single-elimination basketball tournament played each spring. 68 Division I college basketball teams battle for the national championship. It’s “Madness” because it captures the excitement around sports with the tournament, the upsets that happen between teams, the filling out of brackets, and the teams vying for the top spot! Since the tournament happens mostly in March, it is going to be the theme for this month’s STEM Challenge. Your challenge is to create a “trophy” for the champions of the basketball tournament. Your trophy must hold an actual basketball at the top of the trophy. What shape, size, and design should the trophy be to hold the basketball? How tall should the trophy be? What materials can you use?
Your creation does have some criteria and constraints. As mentioned, the basketball has to sit at the top of the trophy. It should support the basketball for 20 seconds without crumpling. The basketball cannot be taped to the supports. The supports cannot be taped to the building surface. It must be at least 12 inches high. You can only use the materials given.

Materials

• basketball
• newspapers
• masking tape

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Hints and Tips for Success

1. Allow students planning and discussion time by having them experiment with the newspaper to see the different ways they can build with it.
2. After experimenting, allow student groups to plan their design by drawing it out and labeling where they will put the tape (each group should get 1 roll of tape). Include as many ways to improve their trophies as needed.
3. For differentiation, adjust the amount of materials available and allowed to use, add any additional materials, take away certain materials, show them different ways to manipulate the newspaper, change the required height. Adjustments could be made to make it more challenging or simpler.
4. Make sure student groups aren’t relying heavily on tape. It is meant to hold the newspaper together and not for supports.
5. Connect to math by discussing dimensions and what that means, measurement, shapes, symmetry, angles, etc.
6. Connect to science by discussing engineering, structure and function, balance and unbalanced forces, etc.