Exceptional young minds: Caine Monroy
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2014 12:42 PM

Caine Monroy is a creative and enterprising kid. In 2011, at the age of 9, he spent his summer building an arcade out of cardboard boxes in his dad's auto parts shop. Caine's Arcade (the name he gave his project) featured numerous games, tickets, prizes and a complex system of game security. However, Caine's Arcade was located in an industrial part of East Los Angeles that got very little foot traffic.

But one day, Nirvan Mullick stopped by the store to pick up a part for his car. Caine asked Mullick to play, and that's where it all began.

Complex gaming
The complexity with which Caine designed his arcade is truly impressive. For starters, players could buy two turns at any game for $1 or pay $2 to get a Fun Pass (good for 500 turns). Mullick, of course, bought a Fun Pass. Caine's Fun Passes are certainly valuable, so the young entrepreneur had to devise an authentication system. He purchased a bunch of dollar store calculators, which he then taped to each game. The back of each Fun Pass has two numbers, a pin and a result. A person will type the pin into the calculator before playing, hit the square root key and check to see whether the result number matches the pass.

Caine even made a T-shirt, which he wears during the days the arcade is open (Saturday and Sunday). He custom made goodie bags out of paper lunch sacks so players could take their prizes home.

Waiting for players
Though Caine's Arcade sat empty for a while, it didn't stay that way for long. Mullick is a filmmaker, and asked Caine's dad if he could make a film about the arcade. He also organized a flash mob to come to the arcade and play Caine's games. The movie, named for the arcade, went viral and inspired kids worldwide to build their own cardboard creations. 

Inspiring a movement
Kids began sending Caine videos and photos of their own arcades. The global response sparked the Imagination Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping kids foster their creativity. The foundation offers programs to communities and schools, and it created the Cardboard Challenge, which asks kids to create teams and design their own inventions.

Caine now
Caine spoke at a TEDxTeens conference in 2013, sharing his experience with the arcade. He still builds new inventions out of whatever materials he has, even breaking apart old computers. Caine also keeps up with his schoolwork and hopes to one day go to college to become an engineer.