Not too cool for school

An after-school club at Princess Margaret Secondary is turning arcade games into a learning opportunity.

Tyler Legare is a teacher at the school, and decided this year that he wanted to start a club based around electronics and robotics. He figured arcade machines were a great option to get the students engaged.

"The first thing that I said to the students was 'Not even I know how to build an arcade machine,'" Legare said. "I want this to be their project, not something that I do for them."

The process began around late October, with any interested students meeting twice a week after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The project involved woodworking, metalworking, electronics, wiring and coding, giving students with a variety of skills the chance to flourish, and ended up with a fully functional arcade console with several one and two-player Nintendo games ready to go.

Legare hopes the club will complete two more arcade games by the end of the school year, and to recruit more members. Right now, he estimates a maximum of ten students show up to each work session.

"I'm hoping that one day with enough interest we can turn this into some kind of a course where credits can be offered," Legare said. 

For now, it's just a club, but one that has been a hit with the students involved.

"It was definitely a fun experience," said Candace Maycurrier, a student. "Great group of people to be involved with."