High school students brainstorm new board game ideas at Innovation Center competition

CEDAR CITY — More than 100 students from Iron County School District’s Launch High School participated in a board-game designing competition on Thursday.

Launch High School students brainstorm board game ideas at Southwest Tech’s Innovation Center, Cedar City, Utah, March 17, 2022 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

The daylong event, called “Produce and Pitch Day,” was held at Southwest Tech’s new Innovation Center in Cedar City, in partnership with Southern Utah University’s Center for Entrepreneurship.

The students were divided into 16 teams, with each group spending the day brainstorming ideas and using the center’s resources to develop their concepts and figure out how to best market them.

“They developed game boards, cards and pieces and began creating their marketing pitches,” said Cory Henwood, Iron County School District’s innovation coordinator.

Isaac Askeroth, manager of Southwest Tech’s Innovation Center, said the students used the center’s 3-D printers, laser etching machine and prototyping room to design and build the various game components. Additionally, volunteers Darin Fraser and Shane Egan of local media production company Box86 offered up their expertise and video equipment to help the students film their sales pitches.

Launch High School students brainstorm board game ideas at Southwest Tech’s Innovation Center, Cedar City, Utah, March 17, 2022 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

Henwood said on Friday that the top three winners were the teams that designed the games called “Burger Dash,” “Tactical Tacos” and “Black Friday Brawl.”

“These teams will be able to move on to our end-of-year Launch Expo and fight for cash prizes in SUU’s Entrepreneurship competition,” said Henwood, adding that the winning concept(s) also will be pitched to a game publisher. 

The students on the winning teams are as follows:

Burger Dash: Halle Vickers, Audrey Burr, Olivia Staheli, Ashlyn Shakespear, Dillion Suarez, Dax Cottam and Logan Hadley.

Tactical Tacos: Spencer Gale, Tyler Larkin, Grace Hansen, Jaydn Payne, Elijah Buckner, Emma Savage, Riley Ball and Carson Miles.

Black Friday Brawl: Kolby Lyon, Payson Slade, Braxton Colburn, Cash Lake, McKenzie Winslow and Connor Criswell.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

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