Posts Tagged ‘games’

Years ago I remember a computer game which involved creating a Rube Goldberg sort of contraption to complete an assigned task.  I can’t remember the name of this game.  It was something like The Machine… it’s been a long time.

Today I ran across a freebie called Crayon Physics.  It works along the same lines as the machine game I remember, but this time you have to draw all the objects from scratch with a crayon.  On top of that, all objects are affected by gravity, so everything falls if there is nothing to hold it up.

The game gives you a ball and you must touch the ball to a star (or multiple stars in some cases).  Below is a screen shot of one level.  By the time I snapped the picture, the ball had already rolled off the top incline and was well on its way to the bottom of the page.  If the star is still on the screen, the game starts all over again with the ball in the original location.

Below is the screen after adding some rectangles and lines.

I have already “touched” the first star and the ball is headed down the incline to the second one.

The layout of the game reminds me of a brown paper bag.  There was a time when a paper bag and a hand full of crayons could keep a kid busy for hours.  This game brings back that magic with simple objects that must be “created” in order to solve the problem.

The free version has seven levels.  The pictures above are from the final level.  What’s the most creative method that can be used to solve each level?  This would be a fun activity for students.  It could be worked into a unit about gravity, geometry or vector algebra.

The author of the program is working on a “deluxe” version.  Check out the YouTube video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsTqspnvAaI

I especially like the “golf club” solution.

NASA has released an RFI to develop a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game that creates interactions that foster the creative and problem solving skills of our youth.  An MMO game is one where players interact with other players instead of computer controlled participants.  Instead of five or ten players, there are hundreds or thousands.  That’s the “massively” part.

This environment could permit students from all over the Internet to simulate a full scale NASA launch complete with separate launch and control centers, and even multiple spacecraft.  In an MMO game, every person visible in the simulation is controlled by an actual person.  This creates a much more dynamic environment because it is much less predictable.

Here is how the RFI describes the game.

A NASA-based MMO built on a game engine that includes powerful physics capabilities could support accurate in-game experimentation and research. It should simulate real NASA engineering and science missions in a medium that is comfortable and familiar to the majority of students in the United States today.

Exciting!

I have been a fan of the Brain Age and Big Brain Academy games on the Nintendo DS.  So I wasn’t surprised when someone in my family gave us the Wii version of Big Brain as a Christmas gift.

If you are looking for a more mentally stimulating game than the average first-person shooter, you will probably like Big Brain.

The whole idea behind these games is to exercise your brain by showing you simple puzzles and measuring how long it takes you to solve them.  The answers are things even an elementary student knows, so the challenge is the go through them as quickly as possible. 

Here’s an example.  You are given four numbers: 4, 1, 2, 3

Eliminate one or more of the numbers so the sum equals six.  There are a couple of ways to do it, but the quickest response gets the most points.

In between family matches of tennis, we are now adding some brain exercises.  Anyone for an online challenge?