(Left to right) Benicia Middle School students Bryce Eldredge, Chris Goodman, Ronald Goodman and Adam Mollica walk around campus dressed as Avengers characters Thor, Captain America, Iron Man/War Machine and Hawkeye respectively. The idea was to publicly display the suit that Ronald created as the final project for his advanced art class. (Photo by Nick Sestanovich)

Benicia Middle Schoolers got a big surprise yesterday, as they witnessed a person in a cardboard Iron Man suit walking around campus during lunch. That person was eighth-grader Ronald Goodman, and it was his final art project for the year.

Goodman is a student in Pat Hall’s advanced art class, which consists of very artistically inclined eighth-graders as well as some equally gifted seventh-graders. The final for the year: create a project out of recycled materials, and do it within five to six weeks.

Goodman, however, had his idea ready before that.

“The first thing I decided I was going to make was costumes or cosplay,” he said. “I started out with Spider-Man suits and some of the Avengers. I started on the Iron Man suit at home, and when I heard we could make our own project in class, I decided to use more resources to come to school and finish it.”

Using excess cardboard from class and an LED light purchased from his friend Adam Mollica, Goodman was able to craft a suit in the likeness of Iron Man— or rather his sidekick War Machine. Goodman was most proud of his work on creating the mask and chest plate.

“The chest plate was the first thing I worked on when I decided to make the suit, so I put the most time into the chest,” he said. “I always wanted to make a mask, so that was my first try. I think it came out pretty good.”

Hall was so impressed with Goodman’s project that she decided the whole school should see it. The two were able to work out a time for him to walk around the campus wearing his suit to a crowd who had never seen it before. He would be escorted by student bodyguards, consisting of Mollica, his brother Chris, and Bryce Eldredge dressed as fellow Avengers Hawkeye, Captain America and Thor respectively.

The sight of a person in a cardboard robotic superhero suit flanked by other superheroes drew a lot of surprised looks and reactions from students eating lunch. Among the reactions elicited from peers were “Wow, it’s Iron Man,” “What is going on?,” “What the heck is that?” and so on.

Goodman has always seen himself as artistically inclined, including in elementary school when he would create art for fun and doodle on notes.

“At my fifth-grade graduation, my teacher commented on how I used to draw on my homework,” he said. “It was just a thing for me to draw on everything I could.”

Goodman will continue to put his artistic skills to use when he takes Art 1 at Benicia High School in the fall.

HE IS IRON MAN: Benicia Middle School students feel Ronald Goodman’s cardboard Iron Man/War machine suit as he walks around campus during the lunch hour. (Photo by Nick Sestanovich)

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