The LEGO Challenge: Creative Problem-Solving
Released on 05/12/2014
(piano music)
[Female Narrator] 40 finalists
20 winners, $100,000 to drop out
of school and pursue our dreams.
This is Teen Technorati.
Hi, my name is Lucy Guo and today
my fate's gonna be decided by Legos.
The finalists got an hour and 45 minutes
to build a Lego bridge the span of the table.
The first rule is there's not many rules at all.
We wanted to see how they would work as a team.
You guys have until four o'clock, go for it.
The question going through every finalist's mind
at that point was what exactly are we
supposed to build in this bridge.
My suggestion for this one is to have
the structural integrity going downward to a point.
[Ishaan] We know that there's going to be
some winner picked for the most creative
or most innovative bridge.
Put these rows almost next to each other
just like this, then we can actually bend and turn.
It's very exciting for these kids to meet each other
for the first time, sometimes they live in towns
where they're the only person who's technically savvy
and working on some obscure technology.
And now here's a room full of 40 people
who are just like them so it's fun to see them interact.
Imagine this spanning the length of
spanning the length of it and then
this slides down like that.
Let's just say there's two countries
that actually drive on different sides of the road
so while they're driving across this bridge
across the border they then switch
so they can actually continue to drive right
into the other country you know cross-border transportation.
I've gotten to know Darby pretty well.
She's really cool.
Build two posts then you slide the other one
through the two squares and it sits.
Well I'm actually competing for the title
of Miss Tennessee this June
so I may be the first TL Fellow ever
to compete in a beauty contest (laughing).
I'm working on a product called Bambina
and I'm tracking vital signs in babies.
Two years ago my very close family friends
lost a son to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
I decided I would use my ability
to streamline knowledge and topics together
to build a product.
I think I'm impressed by everyone
but right now, Catherine Ray is absolutely amazing.
Probably the smartest person I've ever met.
I started working on my current project
when I noticed how difficult it was
for my grandfather to get up and out of his chair
and sit back down, so I created Priiime
a triple phase wheelchair which is modular
so that every person can customize
the wheelchair to their specific personal needs.
We're going to use a well-known truss structure
to actually make it structurally sound.
(pop music)
It's essential for a scientist to foster
their creative side because innovation
comes from looking at things in ways that no one else does.
Can we do that?
If we do it's just like hexagonal
like down here, just hexagons and then have
one straight across the hexagons.
Yeah I don't actually know what you guys
are talking about.
What do you mean the base would be a hexagon?
You could go with that, you could go with that.
I just really like hexagonal structures.
In looking for TL fellows we do focus on
people who have unconventional ideas
and those types of people tend to be contrarian.
Sometimes that presents a challenge
actually working with people because
they're contrarians in all aspects of their lives.
Instead of making like extremely multi-tiered ones
I'm talking about just like a three-tiered one.
No but how does that connect?
Any time I saw an interesting interaction
between anyone I you know made a mental note
and in deliberations those were discussed.
I suspect we're actually being judged
for how well we get along and possibly
our creative problem-solving skills.
But that was on the back of my mind.
I just thought cool, Legos.
I'm 100% a leader and that's not even a question.
I make people feel like there's so much more out there.
And they can become their own leaders
just by following me for just a little bit.
Towards the end a leader emerges
in the successful teams and in the unsuccessful teams
everybody's still running around
and then you run out of time.
So we're gonna-- Can we not do higher ones?
(babbling)
So look at this.
I'm not sure, I mean I think we're building two bridges.
I think ours was the latter case.
The five of us were running in five different directions
trying to build stuff, I would build a base
and somebody else would build a buttress
and we'd have no way of connecting them.
To be honest it was kind of a mess.
When you have a team, if you design something
too intricate you'll never get it done in time.
We have 18 minutes guys.
(yelling)
So we're gonna start with table number one.
All the bridges blew our minds.
It's extremely sturdy.
We kind of built a rocket
and then build a bridge around it.
We filled up 10 glasses of water
and look it's still holding.
This is a mechanically sound drawbridge
made out of Legos.
Nice!
We've based it around the beautiful geometry
that is minimalistic of hexagons.
Our bridge is called DNA, kind of
a meta solution to international travel.
(applause)
The Lego challenge was really fun
we actually won so yay we got a little Lego set
as a prize, I gave it to my roommate
'cause she's never played with Legos before.
We did not win but we were able
to build something that I thought was pretty good.
[Lucy] But the Lego challenge was just a warmup
for the weekend's main event.
The lightning round, so be sure to subscribe
to the Wired channel for the next episode
as my fellow Teen Technoratis and I
face our biggest challenge, stage fright.
(electronic zinger)
2014 Thiel Fellowship Documentary Series Teaser
Meet the 2014 Thiel Fellowship Finalists
The LEGO Challenge: Creative Problem-Solving
Getting Over Stage Fright
Tensions Rising: Final Run-Throughs & Pitch Preparations
The Two-Minute Lightning Pitch
The Thiel Fellowship Finalists Go One-on-One with the Mentors
The Thiel Fellowship Finalists Leave S.F. & Head Back to Reality
20 Teens Win $100K: Announcing the 2014 Thiel Fellows
Classical Toddler Music