Erasmus + days observation: Spaghetti challenge workshop by ARNO

On October 13th, the ARNO team, together with students and teacher Marina Peshovska from high school “Rade Jovchevski Korchagin”, marked the days of Erasmus+ by organizing a workshop on design thinking. Erasmus days are held from October 13th to 15th all over Europe and are based on a very simple concept: within these three days, European values, the benefits of E+ mobility, and the successes of E+ projects are promoted.

In the framework of the workshop with which ARNO celebrated the 6th edition of the E+ days, the students played the spaghetti challenge. The goal of this challenge is for the participants to make the tallest tower with the given materials (20 sticks of spaghetti, one marshmallow, 1m of string, and adhesive tape) by working in a team and within a limited time.

Excitement and competitive spirit were present among all teams who enjoyed figuring out how to create a tower of spaghetti, working under intense time pressure. There were wonderful thoughts and creations, but in the end, only one team took victory and had the tallest tower. For the winning team, there was a symbolic prize (a box of sweets), which the team decided to share with other classmates in solidarity.

This exercise is part of the “Toolkit for Social Entrepreneurship” that ARNO developed within the framework of the INN@SE project, financed through the Erasmus + program. This challenge is played around the world and is a great team-building activity and introduction to the fundamentals of design thinking.

In addition to the challenge, the ARNO team presented some of the current projects, distributed plantable cards from the “Social Enterprises for Economic Development and Social Inclusion” project, and announced that the call for the new RISE Journey will be open soon for all young people who have a team and an idea for social enterprises.