Clash of the Penguins – A Serious Physics Game
Student teams worked on commissioned educational games for six weeks. Last week they presented the results of this interfaculty ‘Building Serious Games’ project.
It was the first time the student teams worked with external commissioners, but project leader, Dr Rafael Bidarra (EECS), has already called this development “a magical formula”, because working on commission improved the students’ motivation and team spirit.
How to make your home more ecological? That was the subject proposed by the Dutch Green Building Council. Six students developed the game, ‘my eco-house’, in which the player has three minutes to equip a house with numerous features, ranging from air-conditioning and solar panels to insulated floors and electric stairways. The resulting house is then rated on energy (scale 0–10) and ecological footprint (0–100). While the game’s graphics were well done, feedback on the ecology of building is still lacking.
The game ‘Teeth Defender’ was commissioned by Professor Robert Kooij, from TNO, who sought an educational distraction for people to play while sitting in the dentist’s chair. Distracting anxious patients could make it easier to treat them. The six students transformed a shooting game into an educational medium, in which the player must defend a row of teeth against the decay-inducing sweets and chocolates marching toward the teeth. The candy emerges from the back of the mouth, strangely enough. The player has various defences at his disposal, such as mouthwash, a toothbrush and dental floss. TNO will now test the game in practice.
The game ‘Clash of the Penguins’ is all about Newtonian physics, aiming to acquaint 15-year old students with the concepts of force and acceleration. To do this, one needs a frictionless environment, which ‘Panna’, a board game, simulates by using a heavy rolling marble. Placing wedges in the marble’s path that steer the ball in other directions are the only permissible ways to alter the trajectory. The students cleverly translated ‘frictionless environment’ into an ice shelf and the ball into sliding penguins. The game, commissioned by Dr Martijn Koops, is not yet ready for release, but it sure will help make physics fun.
