5 Creative STEM Challenges Using Only Pipe Cleaners
Post by Claire Meschkat
July 29, 2025
Looking for engaging, hands-on STEM activities that spark creativity and require minimal materials? Look no further than the humble pipe cleaner. They are colorful, bendable, and surprisingly powerful when it comes to learning. These five challenges are perfect for kids in the classroom or beyond and use only pipe cleaners!
Why just pipe cleaners?
The motivation behind these activities is to foster creativity, problem-solving, and hands-on exploration using one simple, accessible material: pipe cleaners. By limiting materials to just pipe cleaners, students are encouraged to think critically about design, structure, and function without relying on tape, glue, or other supports. This constraint levels the playing field, reduces setup and cleanup, and highlights the power of imaginative engineering. It also promotes resilience — learning to adapt, prototype, and iterate with what’s available, just like real-world engineers and scientists often must do.
1. Pipe Cleaner Tower Challenge
Goal: Build the tallest freestanding tower possible using only pipe cleaners.
STEM Focus: Engineering, geometry, center of mass
Grade Level: 3rd+
Instructions:
Provide each participant or team with a set number of pipe cleaners (e.g., 14).
Challenge them to build the tallest structure that can stand on its own for at least 10 seconds.
Encourage experimentation with wide bases, triangular shapes, or twisting multiple pipe cleaners for strength.
Discussion Points:
What shapes helped the structure stay stable?
How did weight distribution affect height?
What would happen with different materials?
Extension: Add a weight test (place a small object on top and see if it holds).
2. Bridge Engineering Challenge
Goal: Build a bridge out of pipe cleaners that spans a fixed distance (e.g., between two books or boxes) and can support a small weight (like a coin or paperclip).
STEM Focus: Structural engineering, force distribution, tension and compression
Grade Level: 2nd+
Instructions:
Set the span (e.g., 20-30 inches between two supports).
Use only pipe cleaners to build the bridge across the gap.
Optionally, test its strength by placing objects on top until it collapses. (You may need to allow taping the ends to the sides for this)
Tips:
Encourage truss designs (triangles are strong!).
Twist multiple strands together for reinforced beams.
Discussion Points:
How do real-world bridges use similar principles?
What makes a design strong vs. weak?
3. Roller Coaster Track Challenge
Goal: Create a roller coaster-like track with loops, hills, or turns using only pipe cleaners.
STEM Focus: Physics of motion, energy, kinetic vs. potential energy
Grade Level: 5th+
Instructions:
Bend and shape pipe cleaners into a continuous “track.”
While we’re using only pipe cleaners, allow a ping pong ball if you want a “test rider” — or just imagine!
Try to include features like:
A big hill (start point)
A loop or spiral
A gentle “braking” section at the end
Creative Twist: Work in teams to design different coaster types (e.g., fast and short, long and twisty). You can also have the whole class connect their roller coasters for a mega-ride!
Discussion Points:
Where would your coaster have the most speed?
What forces act on the ball as it moves?
4. Animal Prosthetic Design Challenge
Goal: Design a simple prosthetic limb, tail, or wing for a stuffed animal or toy using only pipe cleaners.
STEM Focus: Biomedical engineering, empathy, biomechanics
Grade Level: 1st+
Instructions:
Choose or assign an animal "patient" that has a missing limb, tail, wing, etc. or make it an orthosis that helps a stuffy stand on its own (supports the legs from collapsing).
Design a prosthetic from pipe cleaners that allows it to:
Stand
Balance
Or simulate movement
Bonus: Create a story about how the animal got injured and how your design helps.
Discussion Points:
What makes a prosthetic/orthosis successful?
How does the shape of the limb affect function?
How do engineers design for living things?
5. Egg Drop Cage (Mini-Scale)
Goal: Create a shock-absorbing cage using pipe cleaners to protect a small object from a fall.
STEM Focus: Impact force, design for safety, problem-solving
Grade Level: 3rd+
Instructions:
Use a raw egg in a plastic bag or another small item that is readily available like a ping pong ball. (Okay, we did say just pipe cleaners, but this is too fun to skip!)
Build a “cage” entirely out of pipe cleaners to cushion it from impact.
Drop from increasing heights and test its survival.
Constraints:
No wrapping the object — it must be visibly inside the structure.
Structure must be dropped from at least 2 feet.
Discussion Points:
How does your design absorb shock?
Where did it fail? How could it be improved?
How do real engineers test for safety?
Pipe cleaners may be simple, but they open up a world of complex, creative learning. These challenges blend imagination with real STEM concepts, all while keeping things light, fun, and mess-free.
Whether you're in a classroom, a makerspace, or just your living room, these five challenges prove that innovation doesn't need fancy tools — just curiosity and a few fuzzy wires.
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