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Science students challenged by Caine’s Arcade
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Neighbors | Adrienne Crissman .Mason Spurlock and Tyler Campbell competed in a game of ping pong Oct. 11.
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Neighbors | Adrienne Crissman .Anthony Dellick played one of the games in Cain's Arcade Oct. 11 at Poland Middle School.
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Neighbors | Adrienne Crissman .Principal Mark Covell played pinball in Mrs. Marconi's eighth-grade classes' Cains Arcade display.
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Neighbors | Adrienne .Lauren Minehart had fun playing the games Oct. 11 at Poland Middle School.
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Neighbors | Adrienne Crissman .Amandeep Singh interacted with one of the Cain's Arcarde projects Oct. 11.
By ADRIENNE CRISSMAN
Eighth-grade students in Jill Marconi’s science class were given a challenge, build an interactive gadget using mostly cardboard.
Marconi gave her students three additional restrictions.
“The extra piece had to be recycled material, they had to be interactive and the students only had four days to create them,” said Marconi.
Marconi got the inspiration idea from a movie she saw called Caine’s Arcade. The movie is about a nine-year-old boy who built an entire arcade out of cardboard.
Marconi was more than pleased with the outcome of the projects. She said the students went above and beyond her expectations.
“I expected good work and I got outstanding work,” said Marconi.
Among the projects that the students created were a ping pong table, a foosball game, a pop machine, a pinball machine and a whack-a-mole game.
Tyler Campbell worked on the foosball game and said there were some challenges.
“It was difficult to make the holes big enough for the rod to turn,” said Campbell. “It was also hard to keep the walls up.”
Fifth-grade students from McKinley Elementary got to test out the projects on Oct. 11.
“My favorite part of the project was testing out the games with the kids,” said Campbell.
Even principal Mark Covell stopped by to test out the projects.
“My favorite is the pinball machine,” said Covell.
Marconi hopes her students took something away from the project.
“I hope they understand the design process and learned how to work as a team,” said Marconi. “When you build things there are constraints. Learning to work with what you have builds creativity.”
For more on Caine’s Arcade, visit http://cainesarcade.com/.