Winter STEM Challenges Challenges for Kids

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If you need some quick winter STEM challenges or holiday STEM challenges for your children, a group gathering, a STEM day at co-op or school, we’ve got you covered with these four hands-on engineering challenges kids love.

Most are winter STEM challenges, so they can be used through January and February (Northern Hemisphere!)

If you need some additional engineering challenge ideas, we have several sets of free cards for aircraft, boat, and paper engineering challenges.

We designed and tested these to turn students’ energy and creativity into real engineering thinking, complete with problem-solving, critical thinking, and just enough friendly competition to keep kids focused and motivated to put forth their best design ideas!

Each challenge includes a story-based problem, engineering parameters or specifications they must meet, prototype testing conditions, and a scoring system that gets the design gears turning in your young engineers’ brains. 

Instead of rushing to build, we have designed these challenges to get kids thinking critically and intentionally, rather than just building and hoping it works.

One of the best parts is that these challenges are super flexible. You can bring in some of the season in December by using peppermint sticks or candy canes, or you may opt to use craft materials you have and/or clean recyclables, like cereal boxes, bottle caps, etc.

Plan for extra time with these winter STEM activities and challenges for your kids to think about and discuss ideas. We’ve included our Design Worksheets to help kids think through and record their ideas. There’s a place to record what worked and what didn’t. Plus, a page for redesigning a second prototype. That’s how real engineers work!

Below we have outlined the first of the challenges, but the printable has the scoring rubric, more detail of the challenge below, and three more and the design pages.

Your mission: The big blizzard has blocked all the ways in and out of town. If everyone could just get their vehicles over Cedar Whistle Creek (named this because the wind can be heard whistling through the cedars.) However, there is no bridge over the creek.

You are part of a team that volunteered to create some bridge prototype designs.

STEM Challenge

Build a bridge using only the materials provided. Your bridge must span at least 12
inches and hold full water bottles (or their equivalent weight).  Design a removable
bridge that can be used in multiple snowy locations!

The bridge should:

• Be at least 12 to 18 inches long (depending on how many peppermint sticks you
  have)
• Be able to hold 3water bottles for 30 seconds
• Have at least two different geometric shapes in the design. For example, at least
  one triangle and at least one square OR at least one rectangle and at least one
  triangle, or any other two geometric shape combinations
• Must be able to roll a small toy car or sled across the bridge
• The bridge must be able to come apart so it can be moved to other areas where
  help is needed. It can come apart piece by piece or in sections. You should be
  able to place it in a box (like a shoebox) so it can go to the next location that
  needs help. Snow can melt, so your bridge must be able to get wet (by using a spray bottle or gently pouring water onto it.)
• Be at least 12 to 18 inches long (depending on how many peppermint sticks you
• have)
• Be able to hold 2 water bottles for 30 seconds
• Have at least two different geometric shapes in the design. For example, at least
• one triangle and at least one square OR at least one rectangle and at least one triangle, or any other two geometric shape combinations
• Must be able to roll a small toy car or sled across the bridge
• The bridge must be able to come apart so it can be moved to other areas where help is needed. It can come apart piece by piece or in sections. You should be able to place it in a box (like a shoebox) so it can go to the next location thatneeds help. S
• now can melt, so your bridge must be able to get wet (by using a spray bottle or gently pouring water onto it.)

Optional: Decorate your bridge! (see below)

Try to score as many points as possible with your design!

1. Strength & Load-Bearing:
   1 point if the bridge can hold two water bottles for 30 seconds
   5 points if the bridge can hold three water bottles for 30 seconds
   10 points if the bridge can hold four water bottles for 30 seconds
2. Structural Requirements

5 points is the bridge deck is flat enough for a small toy sled/car to roll across.
5 points if the bridge has 2 different geometric shapes
10 points if the bridge has 3 different geometric shapes

3. Creativity
   20 points – Bonus aesthetic requirement: decorate with pom poms, ribbon, or whatever
   you want to use, or paper snowflakes—but decoration can’t interfere with function.
4. Reusability and Transport
   5 points – Must be able to take the pieces apart and fit into a shoebox for “transport”
   to the next snowy village.
   10 points if you make the bridge modular, so you can assemble/disassemble in
   sections.

How many points did you score?!

Download the Winter STEM Challenges

Use the box below to request the winter STEM challenge printable.

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