Cardboard Arcade shows off students' creative abilities
Students participating in Pinehurst Elementary's PASS Program held a special Cardboard Arcade event recently to show off their specialty-made cardboard games. The students received minimal help during the project, but created a diverse array of fun games for attendees to play.
Courtesy photo
PINEHURST –– A few students in the Kellogg School District put in some voluntary extra time in the classroom recently and then hosted a special event to show off the fruits of their labor.
The Pinehurst After School Solution, or PASS Program organized the Cardboard Arcade, a project that required the students to develop an arcade-style game and then construct it with cardboard.
Once it was complete, the students hosted the Cardboard Arcade for family and friends to check out.
“They were very creative,” Pinehurst Elementary School Principal Mike Groves said. “With a little help from the PASS staff they got all of their games up and running for the event. The kids had a great time designing and making them. The arcade day was a chance for them to show their work to parents and staff and try each other's creations.”
The students made sure to keep a wide variety of games for the arcade, designing cardboard pinball machines, foosball, air hockey, plinko, go-fish and several others.
PASS Program director Deanne Fitzgerald was quite pleased with the students’ creativity and the limited assistance they required through the project period – something Groves noticed and was pleased with himself.
“The assistance was minimal as the objective was to have the kids think through the process from start to finish and to figure out their own work arounds if the original design did not work,” Groves said.
With 32 students participating and the program’s emphasis of things like entrepreneurship, invention, and exploration – Fitzgerald was impressed with the final results from the event and very proud of the effort from her students.
“The kids knocked it out of the park as far as design and the engineering process,” Fitzgerald said. “They presented their games to the public and did great with game descriptions and parameters. Mr. Groves was pretty impressed.”
The PASS Program provides academic/homework help and enrichment activities after school and encourages learning and creativity while providing a positive, safe environment for students after school.