We've visited Caine's Arcade a few times. It's always a treat. This time we created our own cardboard game from a mailing tube, boxes, a Twix cereal box, a pencil, duct tape, and some Gatorade caps. Our goal was to create a small copy of one of my son's favorite ticket redemption games at Chuck E. Cheese - The Smokin' Token.
Here's our cardboard game...
And the original...
While we were there we helped out a group of kids and adults create a cardboard tunnel maze. The ingenious pieces used to connect the cardboard were donated by a company called makedo.
The maze tunnel started off as a small painted cardboard entry and a few boxes but by the end of the day covered as much space as a basketball court. All of the maze was built that day by kids, parents, and volunteers.
The maze included secret rooms, a fort, and many twisting pathways. Local school kids spent so much time exploring and crawling through the maze that they would come out covered in sweat. Friends played hide and seek once the maze grew.
The event had places to build using only recycled items, cardboard boxes, and imagination. The street was blocked off toward the end of the event to have a kid parade. Kids marched in a row showing off their creations and hand made musical instruments with all the adults standing in a long line giving the kids high fives.
Every time I've visited any Caine's Arcade event I've been impressed. The events are a genuine appreciation and recognition of kid's creativity and sense of fun.
Most places dedicated to engaging kids and families - from kid's museums to Disneyland - try hard to look clean and new with bright colors and shiny surfaces. Caine's Arcade, on the other hand, gets dirty cardboard, tons of paint and packaging tape and tells the kids to have fun. Even great kid-focused art programs at almost every museum will have the kids put on smocks to keep the paint off their clothes. Caine's Arcade events seem to encourage kids to sit on a messy floor and get their hands dirty.
This is my son after the event. His knees are covered in dirt, he's sweaty from crawling through the tunnel maze, and he's proudly displaying a few of the things he put together at the event: a cardboard tube bazooka, a cardboard and packaging tape drum, and a large cardboard tube he squeezed into and rolled around in before the kid's high five parade.
Caine's Arcade inspires kids to create without rules and have fun trying things out. The leaders of the Imagination Foundation behind the Global Cardboard Challenge encourage kids to be kids. This is a place where looking forward to a four square game is commonplace.
The best part of the day for me was during a visit by L.A.'s mayor and a city councilman. Before the speech most of the volunteers were herded behind the podium. A group of kids visiting from local programs were also seated behind the mayor for the cameras. But there were still a few kids running around. And during the mayor's speech, while the audience was quiet, you could hear a handful of kids playing hide and seek in the tunnel maze. They would laugh, then yell, then laugh again and chase each other. I thought that was a great moment. The mayor came to speak at a family event and some kids didn't care, they just wanted to play. That's what Caine's Arcade is about for me- letting kids imagine, play, and create- not because adults tell them to but because they want to. And because it's fun.
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