One of Adrian’s birthday presents was a book with experiments using everyday things. A whole section was dedicated to experiments with candy. Adrian decided to try out an experiment that involved heating marshmallows in a microwave oven and seeing them expand (because the air bubbles inside them expand) and then contract as they cool.

That was kind of cool, but Adrian pretty quickly decided to add more. First he stuck wooden toothpicks in the marshmallow to see if they affected things.

Then he added more marshmallows and more toothpicks, and constructed sculptures – that he then heated in the microwave oven to see how they were affected.

He found out that the marshmallows got soft when heated, so the sculptures tended to collapse and needed to be reinforced with yet more toothpicks.