It all started one summer in East Los Angeles with an imaginative 9-year old boy named Caine, who spent the long days in his dad’s used auto parts store creating and building an elaborate DIY cardboard arcade from the discarded boxes. Inspired by Caine’s imagination and creativity, an independent filmmaker who happened to stop by the store for a part for his car made a film called “Caine’s Arcade” about Caine. The worldwide response to “Caine’s Arcade” helped launch the the Global Cardboard Challenge, an annual event that celebrates child creativity.
The Global Cardboard Challenge invites children around the world to build anything they can imagine using cardboard. It culminates with a “Day of Play” where students, families, and the community come out to celebrate child creativity through school activities, block parties, open houses, or show-and-tells. The students in Ms. Komine’s Grade 7 Design & Technology class took on the Global Cardboard Challenge this year, spending a month designing, planning, creating, and building their own cardboard arcade.
Ms. Komine explained that the challenge brings out the creativity, innovation, and imagination of the students, and also teaches them to work together as a group toward a common goal as they construct arcade games out of cardboard and recyclable materials.
“The students had to take others’ opinions, ideas, and thoughts in to mind and put it all together to create a product at the end of the project,” she said.
The cardboard challenge fits in perfectly with Ms. Komine’s class curriculum, and emphasizes the steps in the design process. “The students worked in groups of three or four. They had to do the research, then they went through the design cycle of analyzing and developing their ideas, and then building. After this, they will spend a day analyzing – determining whether it was successful or not, what the feedback was, and how they can improve,” Ms. Komine said.
As the culmination of their projects, the Grade 7 students invited Ms. Uesugi’s fourth graders to a “Day of Play” to come check out the games in their cardboard arcade. The Grade 4 students were very excited to play all the games, and there were so many from which to choose. The arcade included cardboard versions of Pac-Man, a shooting arcade, an air hockey table, a foosball table, and even a water-shooting game using buckets and recycled water bottles.
“It’s the tail end of the project, so they’re getting a little tired, but this “Day of Play” brings new life to the seventh graders. They’re so excited about it,” Ms. Komine shared.
It was also a learning experience for the Grade 4 students. “They can see the problem-solving that went on to create the games, and the innovation that they will aspire to when they get into the middle school,” shared Ms. Uesugi. “They were super excited to come over here.”
