game_board_challenge2

The Sixth Grade Game Board Challenge

Everyone faces challenges. They face them everyday. It was a challenge for me when I had to think of a challenging experience to write about. There are so many that can come to my mind, but most of them are challenges I haven’t solved yet. There isn’t much you can write about if you haven’t overcome it yet. So I’ve decided to write a challenge that I had already overcome. This was an experience I had in sixth grade when I was assigned to work in a group to create a board game that can allow the players to understand a few concepts about geology.

When our sixth grade science teacher, Mr. Charters told us about the project, I was actually really excited because it sounded like a very fun opportunity to show my creativity. Mr. Charters assigned me into a group of 5 with Evelyn, Lisa, Kevin and Benjamin. After a quick discussion, we came up with a brief idea of what the board will look like and what everyone’s job would be. Evelyn was in charge of writing down the rules, Lisa and I were in charge of the game cards, Kevin didn’t really have a job, and we made a very risky decision of trusting Benjamin to make the game board. I was actually the one who suggested Benjamin to work on board because I’ve seen him work with other projects before, and he seemed to be very smart when it came to things like this. The only thing I worried about was that maybe his ideas might be too wild because he is very creative, but sometimes the level of his creativity can be a little crazy.

It was a very unfortunate time to have a big project like this because the project was assigned to us during the few weeks of school between the two winter holidays. We were just back from the Christmas break and we had only a couple of weeks before the Chinese New Year holidays began. Mr. Charters wanted us to work on it as a group during the break, and turn it in on the first day back from the break. That was the first challenge- working on a group project without getting together. So before the break, we just told everyone to finish their job and bring it to school to put everything together.

When the holidays began, I didn’t worry much about my job because Lisa did most of the writing. I just had to edit what she wrote and put them into text boxes, so it’ll be easy to cut them out into cards. Putting the text into boxes and organizing them wasn’t an easy job at all because there isn’t a game card template on Microsoft Publisher. So I had to make sure every box was the same size and they were all lined up in the correct order. While I was doing my job, I contacted Evelyn a few times to check on what she’s been doing, and I also edited her work. I was able to contact Evelyn because we were close friends, but I didn’t have a way to contact anybody else from the group. Lisa was done with her work, Evelyn was done too, and so was I. Kevin didn’t have any work, so that left Benjamin. I was extremely worried. He had the most important job of the project, and I needed to trust him, but I just couldn’t. So on the last day of the vacation, I panicked. I had to do something. I’ve sent e-mails to Benjamin, but he never replied. So I went through my mom’s bag, and found the name list for all the students in our school. (Thank god my mom was working in admissions!) The list had all the information I needed- Students’ names in Chinese and English, their nationalities, their birthdays, their parents’ e-mail addresses, their parents’ phone numbers and their landline numbers. So I went through the list, and found Benjamin’s landline number. I didn’t hesitate a second, and went straight to the phone and dialed the number. A woman received the phone, and said “hello?” in Chinese. So I asked if this was

Benjamin’s house. She said yes, and gave the phone to Benjamin. He picked it up and asked, “who’s there?” So I told him, “It’s me, Himang.”

“Oh hi, Himang!” he greeted.

“Did you finish the board?”

Then there was a slight pause.

“I’m working on it…” It was obvious that he hasn’t started. So I asked him to finish that day. He asked me a bunch of questions about how the design was supposed to be like even though we’ve already gone through that part. So after a long time of constantly calling each other on the phones, he told me that he understood the concept, and he would bring the completed board to school.

So on the next day, while Mr. Oelschlegar was talking to us about the book that we were studying in our first period English class, a little boy came up the stairs with his backpack and a cardboard box in his hands. During our conversations on the phone, not once did Benjamin tell me that the board was going to be the size of four desks put together! I have completely underestimated his level of creativity! He had to struggle a bit to balance the gigantic box onto his tiny hands, and he entered the room with a big smile on his face. Everyone laughed when he entered the classroom, even the teacher couldn’t help but giggle despite the fact that Benjamin was tardy. I remember that Evelyn had her mouth wide open going, “Oh my god!”

Even though I had to say something to Benjamin, but I only helped him carry the box to the back of the classroom because I didn’t want to disturb the class. As soon as the morning break started, our group had a discussion about what was going to happen.

I couldn’t have been mad at Benjamin because it was a creative idea and he did work hard on it. I could see that his mom helped him sew the cardboard pieces together, and it was definitely a strong material, but overall, it was very sloppy. I couldn’t really blame him for that, so we just put together what we could.

Before science class that afternoon, the five of us each held a side of the box up the stairs to the science lab. Mr. Charters saw us coming up the stairs, laughed, and said “Hurry up! You guys’re going to be late!” When everyone was settled inside the classroom, Mr. Charters told us about what he’s seen so far, and he’s decided to extend the due date for everyone. At that moment, that was the best news I’ve ever heard in my life! So we’ve gone over the rubric, and Mr. Charters also printed out a checklist for us to look at. When we came across the requirement “Appropriately sized”, Mr. Charters looked at our group and made a side comment, “Not gigantic!” and we all giggled. He told us that it was okay if it wasn’t appropriately sized because that’s only a small part of the checklist that wasn’t going to affect our grade too much. He said that we might even get a chance of getting an A if we meet all the other requirements.

So I took the board home that day to work on it. My mom was so shocked when he saw me trying to get the box into the door of the school bus. She said, “Is your teacher crazy? He calls that homework?” So I told her that it wasn’t the teacher’s fault, it was Benjamin’s. I worked on the board that night with my dad until twelve o’clock, and I’ve definitely made some improvements in terms of making it look more presentable.

The next day, we worked on it as well. Kevin brought it home one day, and he’s definitely upgraded it. He tore off the sloppy white poster paper that Benjamin used and replaced it with a better quality orange one, and it made the board glow! I remember that Mr. Charters was very impressed with the renovation, commenting “Whoa! Much

better! Much better!” Kevin brought the game board home on the day before it was due, and when he brought it back, it looked completely new! We did some last minute final touches to the product, and we turned it in! The second Mr. Charters said that he was going to grade them over the weekend, I felt a load of pressure fall of my body, and I was so relieved, my heart felt like a weightless cloud. We gave each other a round of an applause for all the hard work and effort we all contributed to the project.

The grades came out after a few days. Even though deep inside I was still nervous that we would get a bad grade, but I’ve decided to be satisfied with whatever we receive because we did the best we could together under the unusual circumstances. When Mr. Charters gave us that rubric, we were all very desperate to turn the paper over to see our grade. So we did, and found a “C” written in blue ink on the top right corner of the rubric. I was actually expecting a “B”, but like I said, I was satisfied with what we’ve done. Some of us went “Awwww” in a shameful way, but I tried to cheer them up by telling them that at least it was a better grade than what we would’ve received before improving it. They all agreed because it was true. If it weren’t for Kevin playing with the colors, Evelyn typing out the rules, Lisa helping me make the cards, we might’ve even gotten an “F”! But I think more importantly, if it weren’t for Benjamin’s creative and wild idea of making the board huge and sloppy, we wouldn’t have worked tight enough as a group.

Through this challenging experience, I have learned many things. I have learned that we have to be clear on what we’re doing. I have learned that we have respect everyone’s ideas, no matter how wild and abnormal it is. I have learned the importance of teamwork. Even if one person messes up, the other people can help that person improve. And I’ve also learned that we shouldn’t panic when times get rough, just like the lyric from the famous Beatles’s song “There will be an answer, let it be.”