Twenty-Five Tries: teacher key

Mark Rober, grade 9 edition, written for 9th grade. Mark Rober turned sand into a liquid after 25 attempts. Read how he works through dead ends, what he built and where his career has gone.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. How many attempts did it take Rober to turn sand into liquid?
   • 25 (answer)
   • 3
   • Half a second
2. What did Rober read for ideas about the sand pool?
   • Fairy tales
   • Industrial patents (answer)
   • Cookbooks
3. What did the industrial designs show instead of one large inlet?
   • Many small air holes (answer)
   • A single big fan
   • A frozen pipe
4. What did Rober tell MIT graduates to do with their failures?
   • Hide them
   • Forget them
   • Frame them in a positive light as something to learn from (answer)
5. According to MIT, how many subscribers did his channel have as of December 2022?
   • 23 million (answer)
   • 75 thousand
   • 3 hundred
6. Why might Rober's build montages look easier than the builds?
   • They are short and leave out mishaps and dead ends (answer)
   • He builds nothing
   • He rests all day

Words

• rover: Mars explorer
• microbes: small life forms
• Curiosity: a Mars rover
• kits: things to build