Tips on how to build car using spaghetti and marshmallows?

Question

The contest rules are posted below:

Objective: build car out of spaghetti, pasta wheels, and marshmellows. The car must coast down a ramp and continue coasting on floor as great a distance as possible.

Materials: 6 pasta wheels, 15 spaghetti strands (uncooked), 10 minimarshmallows, and 1 large marshmallow.

Rules: 10 minutes allowed, wheels must turn, cannot be built more than 7 inches wide.

I'm not trying to get anyone to do this for me, just offering some tips or websites I could visit would be very helpful. It is much appreciated!

Answer 1

Think of the construction sets that use rods and hubs with holes in them (Tinker Toys).  The spaghetti is your rods and the marshmellows (dried hard we hope) are the hubs.  We have to hope there is a hole centered on the pasta wheels, so strands go through those and a small marshmallow goes outside for the "nut" and inside for a stop.  That uses 8 small marshmallow on 2 axles.  Use the inside "stops" as joints for front to back pieces to join axles together and diagonals to brace the otherwise floppy rectangle.

  I was going to suggest using small marshmallows in the middle of each axle to mount another fore and aft bar to mount the large marshmallow for weight, but from the description above, the large marshmallow should be placed in the center to help lock the diagonals together.  All the extra pasta and marshmallows should be stuck on the center for maximum weight.

  It might be possible to add a 3rd axle across the center, if 2 axles with a center weight are sloppy, but there aren't enough small marshmallows to make a nut and stop for each end (unless you are allowed to cut them)  and I think they would be more functional as weight.