PARIS — The challenge for 116 elementary school children was to build a bridge made of marshmallows and fettuccine that could hold a 9.8-ounce toy bus.

“It will be interesting to see how they approach the problem,” said Superintendent Mark Eastman who challenged the students to the “Building Bridges” activity that he said even many of his administrators and teachers have failed to do in previous attempts.

The program was part of a day-long mathematics meet involving the more than 100 district-wide elementary schoolchildren who came to the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Wednesday to compete in a mathematics challenge in the morning, and a building-skills activity in the afternoon.

Students were given a package of marshmallows and a box of fettuccine, donated by the local Hannaford grocery store. They were asked to build a bridge that would hold the toy bus and build it high enough for the superintendent’s hand to fit underneath.

Eastman set the scene for the students telling them a bridge had to be built after a group of students got stranded on an island during an earthquake. Access to the mainland could only be reached by building a bridge to get the busload of students off the island before a tsunami hit, he explained.

Eastman said the team-building exercise involves planning a strategy as a group and using geometry and math skills to build a bridge strong enough to hold the toy bus. The bus must remain on top of the bridge for a minimum of 30 seconds, he told the students.

The challenge, which was done with spaghetti instead of fettuccine with the teachers and administers at various times, is not that easy, Eastman said.

But Wednesday, many of the students “escaped” the tidal wave by building bridges of various shapes that held the bus for the required minimum amount of time.

“It looks pretty,” Barrett McGlaughlin, a Paris Elementary School student said proudly, as he added another piece of fettuccine to the marshmallow bridge. Then it fell.

Eastman said the key would be to build a bridge with buttresses to get the necessary strength to hold it together.

“It’s interesting to see how they approach the problem,” he said as he walked around the room during the contest.

Eastman and district kindergarten-through-grade-six mathematics coach David Stearns evaluated each team’s bridge. While a few of the bridges never met the size criteria for judging, many not only met the criteria but withstood the weight test of the bus.

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Students wait in anticipation as Superintendent Mark Eastman places a bus on top of one of the bridges built during the mathematics meet.

Sixth-grade students Sydney Jackson and Jacob Spinhirn from Oxford Elementary School’s Team Platinum help construct one of the successful bridges in the competition that used buttresses to form a stronger bridge.