Project 5: Canstruction

Everywhere around the world hunger is a persistent problem that requires everyone’s help. In order to increase awareness and donations, a competition called “Canstruction” was created in North America. Teams of engineers, architects, and students gather to create sculptures made of canned foods. The competition has been held for 11 years in 76 cities around the continent. After the sculptures have been judged, all the food is donated to food shelters. In 2007, over 2 million pounds of food was donated. Look at the winners at: https://www.canstruction.org/images/downloads/2007_national_winners.pdf

Here in Guatemala hunger is prominent:

44.2% of the population does not have proper nutrition.
Hunger is most acute in Chiquimula department in the west, particularly the municipalities of Camotán, Jocotán and Olopa.

Roque reported that ''the Guatemalans who are most suffering from hunger are the indigenous peoples of the Mayan ethnicity known as Chortí.''

According to the United Nations Development Program's ''Human Development in Guatemala 2000'', approximately 57 percent of the country's 12 million inhabitants are poor. Civil society groups, however, say the true percentage is probably higher than 80 percent.

7^th grade students participated in their own Canstruction competition. Students were encouraged to gather as many full cans of food as possible, however, they could not be required to purchase canned food so they were allowed to use empty cans as well. At the end of the competition the food will be donated to Casa Alianza, an organization that provides shelter and education to children, teens, and adults. During construction, students had to use problem solving to make their structure stable. They were encouraged to think about the color of labels and how they relate to the object. The following are the categories students were judged:

Favorite (Jurors overall favorite)
Structural Ingenuity (Most difficult structure to build and keep standing)
Best use of labels (Did the best job combining the use of color with the design)
Best Meal (Used the most FULL and HEALTHY cans of food)
Most Cans (Used the most full or empty cans of food in the design)
Honorable Mention (Jurors second favorite overall)