Tonight I was helping out at the children's club - all aged 10-11 years old, half boys, half girls.  I had taken along a 'game' as requested - a challenge to build a tower using newspaper, drinking straws, paperclips and a limited amount of masking tape (about 30cm).  Paper and straws could be traded for more tape.  The challenge was simply to build the taller, free standing, tower in 15 minutes.  They chose to work in gendered teams.

The boys' tower was very elegant, constructed of straws and tape (bought with their paper) and reached a height of 36 cm.  A good effort that they actually asked to take home to show their parents!

The girls' tower was 168.5 cm tall, less elegant, with a passing resemblance to a three legged giraffe where the top had bent over and straws had been fixed to extend the height achieved by the rolls of paper.

It was intriguing to watch how the teams worked - in each case, with good cooperation - and where the ability to think laterally lay (the girls soon worked out that rolled paper was longer than a straw and that paperclips worked as well as tape in holding bits together).

Of course I'm biased, but I'm pleased the girls won - more because it wasn't what I'd anticipated.  I have to assume that the 'girlie towers are pretty not practical' modus operandum is finally disappearing.

Way to go!