Two years ago, the aspiring short film producer Nirvan Mullick released a video titled “Caine’s Arcade.” The humble story about an adorable 9 year old boy went on to gain 4.6 million views, and spark the imaginations of children and adults all around the globe. For those who have not seen it, Caine’s Arcade opens with an inventive young boy who is playing with what seems to be cardboard boxes. Upon further inspection, the viewer will begin to realize that these are more than just cardboard boxes. Caine Monroy has built dozens of games made out of cardboard, for all of the world to play with. He has done this in the front room of his father’s auto parts store, and it was originally thought up in order to pass the time. As Caine explains, it all started when he asked his father for a claw machine. His father told him to go and make one with the boxes in his office, and that was the very beginning of the Cardboard Challenge. While anyone can play with these games, it does come with a price. For one dollar, you can get 3 tickets, and each ticket gets you one round on any game. For two dollars, you can buy a fun pass, which gets you 500 rounds on any of the games in the store. The fun passes even have a code on the back so that Caine can be certain that it is real. However, Caine rarely got customers, and he was left to tend his lonely arcade by himself. But as the video explains, this all changed when Nirvan Mullick came in to buy a new door handle for his car. Mullick was fascinated by the young boy’s creativity and hard work that he had put into the arcade, so he decided to play. Nirvan Mullick bought a fun pass, and became the first customer for Caine’s arcade. Determined to make a difference in the small boy’s life, Mullick decided to spread the word to anyone who wanted to come and play with his games. On a surprise organized date on October 6, hundreds of people gathered around Caine Monroy’s arcade to play with his cardboard games.

Through this surprise, the Cardboard Challenge was born. It captured the imaginations of people worldwide, and inspired kids to think just like Caine and make their own cardboard structures. Once adopted by the Imagination Foundation, an organization that focuses on growing and maintaining the creativity of young children, thousands of schools have participated in the Global Cardboard Challenge. The organization is currently on their fourth year of existence, with the popularity of the Cardboard Challenge ever growing.

Many schools have started their own unofficial Cardboard Challenge. Students at the high school created structures for younger elementary school students to play with, and provided the cardboard to create their own structures. This all took place on March 21st, a Saturday, and was very successful. The children from the school district were overjoyed to have a platform to think and create creatively.

The Cardboard Challenge is not only a global initiative, but it is an established place where children can have fun and be creative at the same time. It all started with Caine’s cardboard arcade and Nirvan Mullick, the short film maker who made it all happen. Shortly after Caine’s Arcade gained its popularity in 2012, Mullick released another documentary-type video titled “Caine’s Arcade 2: From a Movie to a Movement.” It explains just how popular the original Caine’s Arcade really was, and discusses the global initiative. However, in the end, it is all about the imagination and creativity that is inspired within the hearts, minds, and souls of the youth.