The Twinkie Project
Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.
Introduced at Rice University as a finals project, they ended up getting a pretty good grade for it. More important, it became famous online and is used in classrooms nationwide. The rebuttal letters they have been sent are hilarious.

http://www.twinkiesproject.com/

When I introduce the Scientific Method I always show the students the Twinkie Project site, and I do two of their experiments. It's very funny, and actually instructive.

We also designed our own question. How much of a load could a Twinkie handle before totally collapsing? We placed 4 Twinkies on a table, weighed a dictionary, and piled dictionaries on the Twinkies until they had become totally flat. Amazingly, the Twinkies never exploded, and were able to hold a massive amount of "dictionary weight." (the dictionaries were ready to topple before the Twinkies collapsed).

When finished the students came up with household uses for Twinkies based on the experiment. A mattress, an air bag, a couch. You sleep on it, screw on it, and then you snack on it. Sealy, are you listening?

I've read about a teacher that put a twinkie on his chalkboard on his first day of teaching. After 30 years it looked exactly as it did on his first day. His replacement decided to leave it until his retirement.

(12-20-2008 11:14 AM)Chipdip1 Wrote:  The Twinkie Project
Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.
Introduced at Rice University as a finals project, they ended up getting a pretty good grade for it. More important, it became famous online and is used in classrooms nationwide. The rebuttal letters they have been sent are hilarious.

http://www.twinkiesproject.com/

Updated link (archive.org): https://web.archive.org/web/200601012022...oject.com/