Cardboard Challenge
Objective:
Use your imagination and resources to build something
Key Words/concepts:
Participation
Overview of Lesson:
The lesson was introduced with a video by the Imagination Foundation introducing Caine’s Arcade and the idea of building things out of cardboard. I had the video on my screen with no sound while I introduced the original idea of Caine building things out of cardboard. The activity was fairly straightforward- build something out of cardboard. Students had at least 20 minutes of time to choose their supplies and begin building. The goal was to have a day of play where students could show off their creations during a lunchtime event and play other student’s games. Because many students did not finish in 20 minutes, we had students come back at lunch time to work on their projects and even had classes come in a second time. The lesson concluded with a serious clean up session where all materials were cleaned up and returned.
Differentiation by age groups:
The general instructions and concepts were the same for all ages. Older students were encouraged to work with partners or small groups. They also focused more on building and designing arcade games more along the lines of the actual Caine’s Arcade. Younger students tended to work alone and made more models and costumes rather than games.
Materials/Requirements:
–> Cardboard! So much cardboard. Ask for donations from the school community or a local business.
–> Tape! Masking tape is best for working with cardboard and isn’t terribly expensive. However, students will waste so much tape and rolls will be lost so be prepared. On the days we ran out of tape, students were encouraged to think of other methods for connecting things.
–> Cups, containers, recycled items, etc. When designing a game, any randomly shaped item can be useful.
–> Miscellaneous building supplies. Anything is possible for construction here. Some of the available items included pom poms, pipe cleaners, saran wrap, yarn, string, buttons, construction paper, tissue paper, cotton balls, popsicle sticks, paper plates, and more.
–> General tools: Scissors, pencils, markers, crayons, etc. Box cutter is useful to have available for adults to use
–> Optional: Hot Glue Gun. Hot glue would indeed work to attach items but for this project I didn’t want to deal with long lines for students to either have an adult applying the glue or for them to be doing it themselves. This is possible but needs to be managed.
Conclusions/Reflections for the future:
This absolutely is a great concept. Doing the Cardboard Challenge at the start of the year really showed students how open ended the activities are in the STEM Lab and allowed them to completely experiment on their own. The classroom teacher and I did our best to not offer help and instead challenged the students to figure out a solution on their own. Many of the teachers were hesitant that the students would be able to complete this but surprisingly the majority of students got cardboard and got right to work on some idea. Students definitely enjoyed the freedom and a very large number of students came in during the lunchtime opportunities to continue working on their projects.
The downsides of this project… the room was a complete disaster. Having 6 grade levels of student projects that were semi-taped together became a storage nightmare and many student projects were broken or lost. Students who came back a second time to work often wanted to completely change their idea and build something else which resulted in a number of abandoned projects getting in the way of other projects. Supplies were constantly running out and someone definitely had to be the enforcer to make sure student’s weren’t “finding” supplies on other student’s projects. The lower elementary students definitely had the hardest time sustaining focus on this over the span of 2 weeks. The final display event ended up only containing some 4th and 5th grade projects and the projects created in a middle school elective class.
Going forward, conceptually this is a great idea but the logistics really need to be figured out. This would work well as a 1 week intensive unit with a culiminating showcase at the end. Stretching these activities out for too long ended up decreasing the overall interest in the event. Also, stockpiling supplies and/or having a donation drive beforehand would be very helpful for making sure students have access to supplies. Next year I will have the same students again, so it would be interesting to repeat the event to see how the students grow or plan differently having done this once before.
Digital Resources:
Cardboard Challenge Presentation
Idea Sources:
Cardboard Challenge Official Site: cardboardchallenge.com
Twitter: #cardboardchallenge
