Penguin wars and stranger things.

I assigned a project in my class, where students had to invent a board game that taught about simple machines. I am always impressed by the projects I get! Here is one with some pretty involved maps and rules about acquiring territory, in which the opposing players drive little Lego ATV's:

In this next one, called "My Little Boa", there's a simple objective (a Candyland-like path), but the player in possession of the board has to wear a feather boa and a tiara; there is also a song that goes with it. The loser has to wear a plastic bucket on her head.

I loved this one, a trivia game based upon Cheaper by the Dozen, or something like that.

By far the best game, an actually marketable game, was this one called "Penguin Wars, a battle strategy game involving conquest of igloo-building territory and materials.

Here is the board all set up for play:

And here are the little game pieces, drawn by the student in a drawing program, miniaturized, and mounted on foam squares. Have you ever seen penguin snipers or swordsmen? How about heavy gunners? Cavalry!??!!?

I love my job.