Dice rattled and game pieces marched through history Thursday in the South Callaway Middle School gym, as the school hosted History-Con 2018.
Eighth-grade social studies students broke into groups and created board games that focused on a person, era or event from American history. The goal for the students was to create a game teaching players at the convention more about the chosen subject.
Games based in history ranging from the Salem witch trials to the Space Race could be found, many taking inspiration from classic games like "Battleship," "Sorry!" and "Chutes and Ladders."
The students created the games over several weeks, crafting the materials and rules for the finished products.
"It wasn't stressful, but it was definitely a time crunch to get things done," said Heidi Benningfield, one of the students at the event.
Benningfield, Lydia Kaszas and Hayley Stambaugh created a game titled "Race to the White House" based on the 2016 election. Players would pick one of the major candidates from the 2016 presidential election and move around the board answering trivia questions about the candidates until a player won by reaching the White House at the center of the board.
A group made up of Josh Gibson, Corey Wallace, Davin Bates and Bryce Kielbasa created a game based off "Battleship," but used tanks, planes and machine gun nests from World War II instead of ships as targets. Whenever a player would take out one of their opponent's pieces, they were awarded with facts about the equipment used in the war.
Inspired by the Broadway sensation "Hamilton," Hannah Hoover, Hannah Raley and Karlee Bird created a board game in the same vein as "Candy Land" that follows the life of Alexander Hamilton. Players would choose a game piece that represented an important person in Hamilton's life and work their way through a board while answering questions about the man at different stops.
Chad Hecktor, the teacher responsible for the event, said the convention was a break from the traditional classroom setting.
"Just something different to get the kids a little more actively involved," Hecktor said. "Hopefully, it combines some of the things that are popular with them."
He gave the students a basic framework and required certain components in the games they created, Hecktor said, but the students' experiences and interests took it from there.
The event was designed to be a project-based learning activity which uses projects and creativity to teach students about the subject.
"(They) get a real-life experience where they have to defend what they've done, basically, in front of their peers and their community," he said.
The convention was the second PBL activity Hecktor had done, and he plans for another involving the seventh-grade class creating political parties.