Make your inner child happy; visit Extreme Sandbox and play with heavy machinery
Looking for a way to reconnect with your inner child? Why not fulfill your lifelong dream of learning to drive heavy equipment? Extreme Sandbox in Minnesota puts you in the driver seat of your childhood fantasy, letting you play with the most powerful tools on the jobsite, including a wheel loader, a bulldozer, and an excavator.
According to Josh Dean for Popular Science: "The history of Extreme Sandbox is short and sensible. Back in 2009, when he was still a manager for Target Corporation, company founder Randy Stenger drove by a construction site with his 9-year-old son. The boy stared at the heavy equipment rolling around in the dirt and asked, 'Wouldn’t it be fun to go drive those things?'
'Yes, it would,' Stenger answered, and the thought stuck. Later, over beers, he mentioned it to his brother. They spent the next year turning the idea into a business, and nearly another year looking for space. They finally opened the first Extreme Sandbox, three rented machines on a leased 10-acre lot outside Minneapolis, in April 2012.
At first, Stenger taught the sessions himself, after getting a crash course from his equipment dealer and practicing for hours. Clients assumed he had a background in construction. 'Absolutely not,' he’d tell them, with a smirk that he often deploys. 'Does that give you a feeling of confidence?'"
About the Author
Alexis GajewskiAlexis Gajewski
Senior Content Strategist
Alexis Gajewski is a manufacturing writer and editor with nearly 20 years of experience covering the people, practices, and technologies that keep industrial facilities running. For more than a decade, she served as Senior Content Strategist for Plant Services, creating content for plant managers, engineers, and maintenance professionals on a variety of industrial topics.
During her tenure, Alexis worked to develop the brand’s digital strategy and helped launch and produce Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast. She also created The Lighter Side of Manufacturing, a weekly blog that explored the inventive and sometimes humorous side of the industry.
Alexis co-founded Influential Women in Manufacturing, a recognition program that honored 49 women in its first two years, earned an industry award for Best Product Launch, and received a proclamation from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and a commendation from U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth.
She also led newsroom operations and development at a large media company where she set editorial standards, developed training curriculum, and helped support AI adoption for more than 150 editors across 80+ brands spanning manufacturing, industrial processing, automation, and more.
Additionally, Alexis works as a freelance writer and editor, and her areas of interest include continuous improvement, the skilled workforce, and the role of emerging technology on the plant floor.
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