Michael - 12.5 years-old

There's something magical about a sandbox—you have no limits. When you play in a sandbox, you can create an entire world of princesses and sushi or Native Americans having a tea party.

It’s like drawing a 3D picture that you can touch and see from different angles.

You could just take a Matryoshka doll and a tiger figurine and place them on a table or the floor. But the cool thing about sand is that you can pile it up and spread it however you want. You can make hills and valleys, and if you add water, it feels completely different—just like wet sand at the beach, where you can build castles, valleys, and walls.

One day, I went to my grandma’s studio with my cousin—we’ll call him L. L., and I created an amazing, story-filled sandbox with a giant purple dragon, monstrous bodyguards, tons of shiny treasures, and a fearless group of adventurers. I loved the idea so much. The result was almost perfect.

About a month later, I returned to my grandma’s studio, this time alone. I built the sandbox from scratch again, but I made it even better this time, and I had so much fun. The result was even closer to perfect.

The next time I came, I added magical dragon eggs and fire coming out of its mouth. It still wasn’t perfect—but then I realized that perfection wasn’t really what I was looking for.