Toy challenge
The novel concept by four fifth-graders at Mariposa Elementary School has taken them "around the world," so to speak.
The group calling themselves "Shiny Happy People, Inc." and a second team of Mariposa students billing themselves as the "Mega Monarchs" created their own games as part of a national contest.
Both teams were invited within the past month to develop their products at another level: Their games will be exhibited at the 2008 Sally Ride TOYchallenge Nationals at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego on May 31.
Summer Zofrea, Sachi Johnson, Collin Green and Shea Macready, who make up Shiny Happy People, Inc., were selected for their
Mega Monarchs members Meg Richard, Hogan Fenster, Brenna Phillips and William Kumler had a duo-game board design called Rotation Station. On one side is Mousetard! Flipped over, it becomes a ship navigation adventure, SOS (Save Our Souls).
The toy challenge inspired by astronaut Sally Ride is intended to inspire interest in young people in science, math and technology.
Rules for the competition require that teams are made up of at least 50 percent girls.
In order to qualify, teams report outlines of the toys or games, the team, the design process, pictures of the product, record of expenses and documentation of teamwork, according to Sally Ride science events coordinator Colleen Hackney.
Everything is judged by doctors, engineers and people in science-related fields all over the country.
Games and toys with the highest scores go on to a second round of judging be a different set of judges.
Mega Monarchs and Shiny Happy People, Inc. made it through both rounds.
Collin, Summer, Sachi and Shea used Google Earth as a significant source for their game, Global Challenge.
Inspired by game boards from Sorry! and Risk, and the spinner from Life, they created a couple of paths to traverse the world.
"It's a learning process. It's not just playing a game," Sachi said. It was this idea which she felt may have given the team an advantage in persuading judges to give them a shot in nationals.
Global Challenge is set on a visual photograph of Earth from space that encompasses all the continents. Seven players, each representing a continent, can play.
The object is to travel the world and return to the starting position; along the way players encounter Fact cards and Challenge cards.
A Fact card will simply offer an educational anecdote, such as "Wetland Watch is a wetland conservation project of WWF Australia, aimed at sustainable management and conservation of wetlands on the swan coastal plain."
Challenge cards often denote natural disasters based on where in the world the Challenge square lies, and will set players back so many spaces in their journey depending on whether the disaster is an earthquake, sandstorm, hailstorm or lightning strike, for example.
The winner has to answer up to three final questions in order to win.
All their information was taken from facts found on Google, they said.
An example of a final question could be, "How many years ago was Australia inhabited?"
According to their Google search, their answer is 42,000 years ago.
"We didn't think any of our ideas would ever form into something like this," said Summer, who is the team's captain. "When we found out we're going to nationals, I started screaming. I called Sachi and stuff."
"It took three and a half months for us to decide on Global Challenge," Shea said.
The team agreed. A lot of ideas for games were conceived, but with deadline approaching to submit an application, they were able to focus on Global Challenge.
All of them were documented by Collin in a thick journal of notes, drawings and ideas from the first day they began meeting in October.
It was a daunting task, Collin said, but a necessary one. Judges require complete documentation of every step in the process.
"Coming up with all the ideas was fun," he said. "I'm a writer, so I wrote down all the ideas in the journal."
According to Collin, his sister Heidi, a student at Moore Middle School, tested the game and reported in a survey, "The game is fun for people our age," and added, "It needs a theme song."
Technically, the team derived its name from the REM hit "Shiny Happy People," which they plan to play while demonstrating the game at nationals.
Sachi helped with the documentation, and recorded notes about field trips to the GIS department at the University of Redlands.
Shea, whose mother Anita West Macready is the team's coach, spent a lot of time on the Internet and Google Earth to map out their game board.
"I like seeing how it all turned out and how much progress we made," Shea said.
"Working together was one of our biggest challenges, but once we were focused, were had some really good ideas," Sachi said.
Hogan Fenster, Meg Richard, Brenna Phillips and William Kumler came up with a twofold theory to win them a spot at nationals: a game board which can be flipped over to reveal another game.
The game, called Rotation Station, features a double-sided gameboard.
"It's our advantage" over other students around the country who are building games, according to Hogan. "We built two games in one."
On one side is Mousetard!, a gameboard on which up to four players make their way around the board trying to land on spots that will allow them to put condiments on their clay hot dogs.
Each player has a little bag with felt strips representing eight condiments such as ketchup, mustard and relish, for instance. They have to land on a spot that instructs them to "apply mustard" or "apply ketchup" in order to put it on their hot dog.
The first to land on all the toppings wins.
On the flip side, the game board has a space between the two game boards to allow for magnets on a stick to be inserted.
Two players navigate waterways to rescue passengers from a sinking ship and put them, one at a time, onto an island.
Players hold a baton with a magnet attached to it and slide it underneath the game board to drag along passengers in a rescue boat. Slightly raised edges along the waterways prevents passengers from simply being dragged across the board.
The first to rescue all 10 passengers and the captain - the last one who may be rescued - wins.
Meg believes Rotation Station will do very well at nationals.
"We're going to win nationals because we have an awesome game," she said. "I feel very strongly we're going to beat everybody."
Brenna seemed relieved that someone else saw something special in their product, considering how much the team agonized over what their game would be in the end.
"At first SOS didn't sound possible with all the magnets. Then Mousetard! came up and we thought we should probably just focus on one game," she said. "We worked on it and realized, `It's workable,' and that it's a really good idea."
Mega Monarchs coach Jon Fenster was pleasantly surprised when his team was invited to nationals.
While Fenster is legally not allowed to assist in the planning and implementation of the design and creation, he was available to help them get supplies, but he "let them do the critical thinking."
"I never imagined they would be going to finals. They had no experience in this," he said, "but after we submitted the idea, I realized it really is a pretty slick concept."
A fundraiser to help with travel expenses for both Mariposa's teams will be held at Gourmet Pizza Shoppe from 4 to 9 p.m. May 14.