Children and adults who participated in the Cardboard Challenge at the Soldotna Public Library on Friday were equipped with duct tape and turned loose on cardboard boxes with one instruction: make something. The resulting creations included a pair of robots, a ball-tossing game, an airplane, an model opera house, and a giant cat.

Soldotna youth librarian KJ Hillgren said the library was taking part in an international event to encourage imaginative construction with cardboard.

The global Cardboard challenge was organized by the non-profit Imagination Foundation and inspired by “Caine’s Arcade,” a 2012 documentary short about Caine Monroy, a child who created an arcade of cardboard games in the warehouse of his father’s Los Angeles autoshop.

Ben Boettger/Peninsula Clarion Ashley Denicola sits on a cardboard stool (built by her mother Robin Denicola) and wears a cardboard robot head while her father Steven Denicola stands nearby on Friday, Oct. 9 at the Soldotna public library. The Denicolas were participants in the library’s Cardboard Challenge, in which visitors gathered to make things from boxes and duct tape.

Ben Boettger/Peninsula Clarion Charlotte Wardas (left) and Sarah Gardner construct a house out of cardboard and duct tape during the Cardboard Challenge on Friday, Oct. 9 at the Soldotna Public Library.