ETC projects named Best Serious Games at JCSC 2015

The work of two ETC project teams, Imagica and YETI, Hello Ocean and Arctic Stars were recognized as the Best Serious Game at the Joint Conference on Serious Games (JCSG) 2015 at the University of Huddersfield, U.K.  These projects’ efforts were recognized for bringing ocean reef and tundra biomes into the classroom in clever, appealing ways.

Presented at the conference by ETC faculty member Mike Christel, the talk discussed advances in game engines and tablet technology, experiences that formerly required a field trip can now be brought into the classroom. Two interactive experiences, “Hello Ocean” and “Arctic Stars: The Far North” were developed to bring a swim-through exploration of a Caribbean reef and a walk-through experience of an Alaskan tundra to an elementary school located far from an ocean and far from Alaska.

Congratulations to the Imagica team members: Bo Chang, Roma Dave, Adarshkumar Pavani, Ojas Sawant, Siddhant Shah, Jimin Song and the YETI team members: James Inglis, Christian Karrs, Ken (Xuyan) Ke, Shashank Kiramkonda, Eric Kron, Levi (Xinghu) Lu.  Both teams had Jess Trybus and Mike Christel as project instructors.

Hello Ocean is available to download in the App Store and Google Play

Arctic Stars: The Far North is available to download on Google Play

More about the paper:  Proceedings LNCS 9090, S. Göbel, M. Ma, J. B. Hauge, M. F. Oliveira, J. Wiemeyer and V. Wendel, Eds. Springer International Publishing, 2015, pp. 91-102. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-19126-3_8. See also: 4.56 MB PDF slide deck for the conference talk.

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