TOOELE COUNTY, Utah — A group of recently graduated high school students from Tooele County has earned national recognition for their creativity, collaboration and board game design skills.
The team of students from various schools won the top prize at the Board Game Design Competition at the National Technology Student Association Conference held in Nashville this summer. Their original game, called Honey Cakes, beat out more than 80 teams from across the country.
“It’s called Honey Cakes because you play as one of these queen bees and you're trying to get to center the park to be the first to get a slice of the cake [on the board] and make it back to the hive,” explained Alex Burton, a student at Stansbury High School who helped with the engineering designs of the board game’s box and other components.
The team, known as the “Bee Team,” met at the Tooele Community Learning Center, a public school program operated by the Tooele County School District. The center offers various career and technical education programs like graphic arts, dental assisting, engineering and cosmetology for local students.
Their original game, Honey Cakes, was designed entirely from scratch. The students created every element of the project, from game pieces and packaging to rulebooks and design documentation.
“Our class is graphic arts, and so we teach students all about Adobe, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and how to produce artwork and how to design,” said Grant Roberts, the team’s graphic arts teacher at the Tooele Community Learning Center. “And these students are part of my advanced class, and the advanced class has an opportunity to participate in TSA competitions, which there's a whole bunch of different competitions, mainly STEM competitions, but we competed in the board game competition.”
Team leader Karah Richardson, a student at Tooele High School says each team member was proud to take on specific roles in creating the board game.
“I was the team leader, but I mostly did art,” Richardson said. “I spent hours doing the thumbnails and sketches and all the fun stuff. That was definitely my favorite part of the project.”
The team is still working on how to bring Honey Cakes to the market. And while the competition only offered a trophy and recognition, they still came away with something pretty memorable.
“This is the closest group of friends I've had in a while,” said Matthew Mickelson, a student at Grantsville High School. “I was able to share a couple of personal experiences with them, and it's been just great working with them and getting to know them.”
So what’s next?
There are no official plans for store shelves just yet, but the students say bringing Honey Cakes to market is something they’re actively exploring.
The students who were part the team:
- Tia Johnson, Stansbury High
- Alex Burton, Stansbury High
- Matthew Mickelson, Grantsville High
- Ava Wright, Stansbury High
- Karah Richardson, Tooele High
