The Twinkie Project
Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.
Introduced at Rice University as a finals project, they ended up getting a pretty good grade for it. More important, it became famous online and is used in classrooms nationwide. The rebuttal letters they have been sent are hilarious.
http://www.twinkiesproject.com/
When I introduce the Scientific Method I always show the students the Twinkie Project site, and I do two of their experiments. It's very funny, and actually instructive.
We also designed our own question.
How much of a load could a Twinkie handle before totally collapsing? We placed 4 Twinkies on a table, weighed a dictionary, and piled dictionaries on the Twinkies until they had become totally flat. Amazingly, the Twinkies never exploded, and were able to hold a massive amount of "dictionary weight." (the dictionaries were ready to topple before the Twinkies collapsed).
When finished the students came up with household uses for Twinkies based on the experiment. A mattress, an air bag, a couch. You sleep on it, screw on it, and then you snack on it. Sealy, are you listening?