FORT BENNING, Ga., (May 25, 2016) -- Students at Wilson Elementary School are following in the footsteps of Caine Monroy, a boy who gained national attention for the arcade games he made out of cardboard boxes and other everyday items.
After the creation of his arcade, Monroy became the star of the short documentary film "Caine's Arcade" by Nirvan Mullick.
The success of his film prompted Mullick to start the Imagination Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to encourage creativity and entrepreneurship in children around the world, with the grant given to him by the Goldhirsh Foundation.
Jenna Moore, a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math teacher at Wilson Elementary, decided to show "Caine's Arcade" to the students of Wilson Elementary.
"We are using Caine's Arcade to inspire our students to work collaboratively to use the engineering design process. The five-step process involves getting kids to ask, imagine, plan, create and improve," Moore said.
The students at Wilson Elementary School worked on building their arcade games May 16 and 17.
"It's our culminating STEM event. Students are applying the skills and information they've learned all year," Moore said.
"It's a school-wide activity. All of the grades are participating. I would love to turn it into something that they do every year. Our Partners in Education, the Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course students of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, even came out to help the students build the games," she added.
Stacey Thibodeaux, who teaches a fourth and fifth grade combination class, said the students had to design a plan, come up with three rules and directions, sketch a blueprint and finally create the game.
Kindergartner Caden Johnson said he and his partner George Haaf III made a skateboard racing game using toy skateboards and cardboard boxes, because they wanted to do something different.
Second-graders Adriana Moffett and Naomi Lehman created a handheld game using a cardboard box lids, bottle caps and an egg carton. To win, players had to land the bottle cap in one of the egg carton slots, which were labeled with different points.
"We decided to make this games because I have a Barbie game like it at home," said Naomi.
"We had a lot of fun putting it together," added Adriana.
Third-graders Giovanni Haywood, Joshua Stewart and Ethan Bushor designed a fireball toss game out of cardboard boxes, construction paper and other materials.
"After watching the video, we thought it was really cool what Caine did. Making our game was a lot of fun," said Giovanni.
Fourth-graders Hayden Cunningham and Luke Smith along with fifth-grader Florian Way created a dart game using cardboard boxes, balloons, pushpins and tape.
"I think it was creative the way he made his arcade and we wanted to do the same thing," said Hayden.
"This game was inspired by one of our favorite games. I see it all when I go to carnivals," said Florian.
Fourth-graders Nevaeh D'Angelo and Megan Shipes along with fifth-grader Aniaya Pellegrino created a bottle ring toss game out of cardboard boxes and plastic bottles.
"We made three different levels at three different levels so that kids from every grade could play and have a fair chance," explained Nevaeh.
Once all of the games were completed, Moore explained that students within each grade would have the chance to play them.
"I'm excited about the success of this project. What the kids are creating is the product of STEM learning at its best," she said.
Social Sharing