Yokai D&D - The Netted Blue Oni

The Netted Blue Oni As part of a larger dungeon-crawler-style project, middle schoolers traversed through several rooms to encounter challenges inspired by Japanese folklore. In this room, they seek the help of a Blue Oni in this design challenge to create a netted cube that can hide their character when closed. The Blue Oni: In Japanese folktales, the color blue can represent hostility or loyalty. In this room, students meet a surprisingly helpful creature who is famous for having helped a fellow Oni become friends with humans a long time ago. Legend has it that this Blue Oni threatened to terrorize a village so that a fellow Oni could arrive and pretend to protect it. In order for this elaborate prank to work, the Blue Oni had to go into hiding, which saddened his fellow Oni because he was grateful for this sacrifice but missed his loyal friend. Fortunately, the Blue Oni continues to be friendly toward others; however, students have to hide you from the evil Red Onis who would rather have them for their next meal. For this challenge, they make a 3D print of their character that can hide in a netted cube. Details for their body and face need to be able to correctly fit together whether they are hiding inside a cube or not. (For example, the image shows how the ears on a panda are not oriented correctly, which is why this activity is a great spatial reasoning challenge!) When designed correctly, the loyal Blue Oni can help students get through this room unnoticed. Netting a Cube: The image shows on one of 11 ways to "net" a cube, which is a flat, two-dimensional arrangement of six squares joined edge-to-edge. These squares can be folded to form a complete three-dimensional cube without any overlapping faces. There are several applications for this process, including ways to cut a flat piece of cardboard to make the perfect box. Credits: This activity was developed by Dr. Grant R. Miller and is part of the Educating with Evidence project at Southern Illinois University. It was created with funding from a regional grant through the Library of Congress' Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative (https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/teaching-with-primary-sources-partner-program/lewis-houghton/). Image of the Oni is from Yokai.com. Bestiary background image is from the Library of Congress' Free to Use and Reuse Japanese Print Collection (https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/japanese-prints/).