Connect 4? Why Not More?

HPHS students invent new games for Scottie Joe’s coffee customers

Engineering, problem-solving, technology, mechanics – Highland Park High School MAPS program students employed those and other skills for a recent project.

The Moody Advanced Professional Studies (MAPS) program challenged students to make tabletop games for customers of Scottie Joe’s coffee shop to interact with while they wait for their drinks.

Scottie Joe’s is an 18+ program-run coffee shop on the campus that is accessible to all students and teachers. The menu features a wide range of drinks, from hot coffee to iced lemonade.

Project parameters were mainly wide open except for a deadline.

Juniors Charlie Poray and Row Dyer found inspiration in Connect 4, where two players take turns dropping their colored game pieces into a vertical game board until someone can complete a four-piece line of one color.

“We took the original idea of Connect 4 and said, ‘Why just two people?’” Poray said.

Poray and Dyer come from big families, so Connect 4 was never picked off the rack for game night. The boys wanted to make their game more interactive for a larger group of people.

“We went through a number of design innovations to try to accomplish our goal of keeping the design style and play style of Connect 4 but being able to add more people,” Dyer said.

The two boys then took their ideas to paper and started with a 2D drawing. After the paper schematics, Dyer and Poray put their ideas into the Fusion 360 3D printing software to print their game.

Other students found inspiration from games such as Shuffleboard and Battleship.