Illuminate
The Illuminate project is the first step towards inspiring young minds to pursue science and engineering as a career. The end-product is a multi-platform game for 1st-3rd graders that inspires interest and teaches basic concepts in the field of science. This semester, we are focusing on developing game prototypes that will utilize these concepts in a fun way and lay the foundation for further development.
Sci-Fri
SCI-FRI (Science Friction) is a project working towards inspiring young minds to pursue science and engineering as a career.
The end-product will be a series of multi-platform games for Pre-K-3rd graders that inspires interest and teaches basic concepts in the field of science. This semester, we are focusing on developing game prototypes that will utilize these concepts in a fun way and lay the foundation for further development.
This semester we are working on new games that cover different physics topics while also helping encourage scientific reasoning skills like constructing explanations and engaging in arguments based on evidence. Our target demographic for these games is ages 5-7 and our target platform will be primarily PC, with Android tablets as a supplementary option.
Torque-It!
Torque It! is a project working towards inspiring young minds to pursue science and engineering as a career. Initiated by DARPA, this is a multi-year project working in conjunction with many different institutions and organizations, such as the Sesame Workshop and Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute. The end-product will be a series of multi-platform games for Pre-K-3rd graders that inspires interest and teaches basic concepts in the field of science.
This semester we are working on a new game that covers the balance formula based on a paper written by Robert Siegler. We are also incorporating elements that will encourage scientific reasoning skills like constructing explanations and engaging in arguments based on evidence. We are also working towards tackling socio-emotional tasks, such as encouraging kids to collaborate with each other in the game. Our target demographic for these games is ages 5-7 and our target platform will be a web game developed for HTML5.
Stempower
Stempower is a project team at the Entertainment Technology Center’s Pittsburgh campus. Charged with creating a STEM game for kids and based on research by Stella Vosniadou, we are exploring misconceptions elementary school aged children may have about the relationships of cycles between the earth, the moon, and the sun. Our goal is to create an educational and entertaining Unity3D powered game for the web that teaches children the process of acquiring knowledge about our physical world.
IMPACT!
Impact! is the 4th project of the DARPA ENGAGE program here at the ETC. This semester we will be reviewing, revisiting and revising the games that have been made as apart of the ENGAGE project from the previous semesters. One of our main focuses this semester is to get the ENGAGE games running on different educational game portals, such as Learning.com.
The new team will be taking the game built by the Torque-It! team last fall, Teeter-Totter Go! and giving it a fresh overhaul that helps it become more of a game rather than feeling like a series of exercises. We are also working to improve RumbleBlocks (Fall 2011) and Beanstalk (Spring 2012) in terms of learning effectiveness based on feedback from our partners, the Human Computer Interaction Institute.