Boston Urban Symposium Teams Up for the Spring Semester!

Richard LeBlanc (L) and Yi Ding (R) construct their spaghetti marshmallow tower during the Urban Symposium team building exercise.
Richard LeBlanc (L) and Yi Ding (R) construct their spaghetti marshmallow tower during the Urban Symposium team building exercise.

Professor Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz’s Boston Urban Symposium class kicked off the spring semester by participating in the Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge, a team building exercise with the goal of revealing innate personality traits about different team members in a group, as well as highlighting the different roles members undertake and overall group dynamics. The importance of team building is particularly pertinent in this capstone course that centers on a semester length group project focusing on topical issues that involve the greater Boston metropolitan area.

Class
Alejandro Delgado (L), Elmo Wiratama (C), Beyazim Jimenez (TR), and Katie Whewell (BR) put their team building skills to the test.

For the challenge, the class of was divided into groups and given 18 minutes to create a freestanding structure using only spaghetti, tape, and string. The conditions were simple, the structure had to support the weight of the marshmallow and be as tall as possible without collapsing. After a quick a brainstorming session, most of the teams came to the same conclusion of building a structure with a triangular base in which they could support the marshmallow. In the end, only one group prevailed and managed to get an actual standing structure.

Winner
The winning structure.

The challenge brought up important questions about how urban planners can cooperate with each other to meet a common goal, whether that be getting the marshmallow to the tallest point, or developing policies that will increase standards of living for the citizens of Boston in a way that is both sustainable and realistic.

The Boston Urban Symposium is a capstone spring semester class that has a focus on interdisciplinary learning in the field of urban development and city planning. The theme for the class changes every spring, but professionals and guest speakers are always invited to talk about their past experiences and share the challenges they’ve had to overcome in their field.

This spring’s Boston Urban Symposium focused on Equitable Development in Opportunities in Boston’s Transit-Rich Neighborhoods. For more information, visit the project website and view the presentation.

 

– Cecilia de Almeida, CAS ‘19