Cardboard Creations

This is the second time that I have been introduced to "Caine's Arcade". I watched the Youtube video a few months back and thought that it was the cutest thing! If only I was that creative at his age. So many times you listen to student's describe their ideas that spud from their imaginations, but its not as often that those ideas come to life and grow into a success. It takes creative thinking and motivation to make an idea like Caine's Arcade come to life and strive. But it's not an easy road to reach the final product. When given the directive to create something out of cardboard, I again, had trouble thinking of ideas. So, again I sought out inspiration on Pinterest and Google. It was then that I found a creation out of cardboard that reminded me of one of my favorite "Price is Right" games - Plinko. It was then that I decided to attempt to create a mini Plinko board out of cardboard. Warning - This process was not as successful as my robotic hand and waterslide creations in the past. Luckily, I am in the process of unpacking and setting up my classroom, so cardboard box supplies were plentiful. I gathered the supplies by taking an average sized box for the base of the Plinko board, a smaller box that could be used for where the Plinko game piece lands at the bottom of the Plinko board, and paper towel tubes to use as the pegs. I also got out my hot glue gun to attach the pieces. Here is an image of my supplies before I began the process.

The first thing that I did was cut all of the "wings" off of the average sized box so that they wouldn't get in the way. I didn't have the best scissors for cutting cardboard so it was harder than it sounds. I also cut down the paper towel tubes into smaller pieces so that they were the size of pegs.

Next, I cut a small hole in the top of the average sized box which is where the Plinko player would drop the Plinko piece in. After that, I placed the paper towel pieces in the arrangement that I wanted the pegs for the Plinko game to be, inside of the average sized box.

Once arranged, I used the hot glue to secure each paper towel tube piece. I then placed the smaller box in the bottom of the average sized box to catch the Plinko game piece when dropped. I tried to find a way to separate the small box to give different point vaules to where the Plinko piece lands, but I did not have success. It is still a work in progress and has not been completely tested with an object to act as a "Plinko" piece, so I am not sure as to the extent of the success of my product. I plan to continue making improvements when I have more time to think and problem solve further. In the future, if I were to start from scratch, I think I need a larger box for the Plinko board, and cut down the edges so they aren't so wide. Here is an image of the final product thus far: