Design Challenge
Summary
Design Challenge 2005 clearly built on the experience of the previous year. Extra contact time for the teams with mentors from industry and academia meant that the quality of the ideas took a leap forward; including learners in the feedback at an early stage gave new perspectives for the teams and an added depth to the ideas; and more explicit competition gave an added spice to the atmosphere of the event and the final presentation at the BETT 2005 reception. The overall quality of the ideas was superb and all were well illustrated for the final, proving again that a multi-disciplinary approach with early input from the intended audience makes for a winning design process.
The process
Team members met for the first time at regional workshops in early November 2004, where the brief was issued. Mentors from both industry and academia guided the teams whilst they were finalising their ideas. In late November the teams got together again for a weekend of further idea development, this time by designing a board game of their project; while at first this seemed alien to many, the thought process it invoked proved invaluable in clarifying the ideas. Throughout December the teams continued work on their ideas, again with mentors available to offer counsel.
At the hothouse in early January the teams had only three days in which to author a credible illustration of what their idea was and how it would work. Judges assessed the projects based on the educational design, innovation, interactive design, future potential and team work. The quality of the ideas and designs this year was such that the judges found it impossible to single out one project - Imagine and Red Jams were deemed equal winners. The enormous effort that all the teams put into creating their idea illustrations was evident in their output. None shied away from difficult-to-teach subject areas and all had innovative approaches in design,
The projects
Age0+: Re-view
Re-view is a large generalised system that uses children's love of text messaging to engage them in difficult subjects and encourages empathy, imagination, self-expression and independent learning.
Agent X: Empathy
Empathy is a hybrid board game and computer game; a flat computer monitor is placed upright in the centre of the board. The board uses traditional techniques such as counters, squares and cards. The final piece is therefore an interesting combination of the complexity enabled by the computer system and the appealing tactility of a traditional game. The game engages children in disaster relief scenarios.
Cognition: Environment
This game engages the player in understanding the delicate balance of life in the rain forests. Each player attempts to protect a different endangered species by manipulating factors in the environment.
Done by 5: Untitled
Done By 5 created a prototype system aimed at children with severe learning difficulties such as autism. Simple animations and tasks engage the user and help establish important world-relationships. The team managed the difficult task of making the activities easy to use while remaining stimulating.
Donuts: Tracks
Complex learning journeys are undertaken using the metaphor of a train journey. At each stop the user is faced with a series of challenges and activities. More of an entire learning environment toolkit than specific game, Tracks puts into practice many contemporary educational theories.
Dot Commoners: Punc:Fun
This is intended as a site-specific installation, to be placed in corridor spaces in the school and engage pupils in casual, informal activities based around clear expression and punctuation. The piece uses a very metaphorical use of imagery and music to create an almost club-like environment.
Imagine: Twistin' Tales
Multiple players get to create fantasy characters and explore a virtual 3D environment in order to build up a story. The story is captured as a sequence of stills from the virtual world, and captioned by the players. Hence, they get to make their own strip cartoon.
Masterad: Chatter
This is a collaborative game played by pairs of young children who speak different first languages. Each helps the other learn the fundamentals of day-to-day language through image and activity; through this pupils learn the value of collaboration and get to understand others' cultures and differences. In the prototype English-speaking pupils were paired with Somalia speakers.
Monkey Tale: Poetry Space
A set of poems is illustrated by a set of interactive rooms, each containing a cluster of responsive objects. The purpose is to explore the metaphorical and emotional aspects of poems using a spatial/object metaphor.
Taboo: Quandary
Quandary is used to by pupils in teams or individually to elicit debate and discussion around areas that many young people find difficult or embarrassing to talk about.
Red Jams: Kampus
Kampus is a flexible avatar-based game designed to make teaching
XPlore: RE
Religious Education is explored through a gaming engine. Pupils get to make their own board from a kit of parts before setting off on their exploration.
Zen Dui: Appealing Mandarin
A 3D games engine is used here to guide players through a maze; you have to learn and re-use Mandarin phrases and writing to be able to progress...
The response
Participants in the challenge have expressed their enthusiasm for the event on both a professional and personal level:
"The main thing is getting to work with people who have skills which we haven't necessarily got ourselves to engage pupils. The one thing you don't very often get to do apart from in the classroom as a teacher is explore your own creativity." Jamie Perfect, Teacher (Dot Commoners)
"There definitely is a way here through games to make learning fun and different for kids and to engage them on a completely different level than has been tried before." Mandy Honeyman, Linton Village College
A measure of the importance of the underlying principles of Design Challenge was the interest shown by policy makers, industry professionals and teaching practitioners at the reception event at BETT 2005, attended by over 150 people from these sectors.
