Recent posts for Digital Zoo
Middle school girls engage in four week version of Digital Zoo
Based on the results from the 2005 version of Digital Zoo, a longer, 80-hour version was developed for implementation in 2006. Twelve middle school girls worked in teams of three as part of the Digital Zoo Prototype Development Department to develop a series of animated, wire-frame characters that expressed a particular emotion, using the Sodaconstructor spring-mass modeling environment.
Middle school girls play three week version of Digital Zoo
After conducting an epistemography of an undergraduate engineering design course, we designed a 45-hour version of Digital Zoo which was implemented as a summer enrichment program in 2005. Working in teams of three, players designed wire-frame character prototypes for an upcoming animated film. Advanced undergraduate engineering students worked with the teams as Design Advisors, providing guidance with the design process as needed.
Berta’s Tower
In the Berta’s Tower project – a fore-runner of Digital Zoo – we investigated the effectiveness of SodaConstructor as a game engine. Twelve middle school students participated in two weekend-length games, engaging in engineering design projects that involved creating static and dynamic structures in SodaConstructor. The project was completed in 2003.
The Next Frontier
Over the past four weeks, I’ve visited about 12 Catholic schools (distributed across elementary, middle, and high school levels) as part of my new job. Given what I’ve been working on for the past 5 years, I’m naturally drawn to asking about the technology available at these facilities. Since the ACE program typically works with under-resourced schools, one might expect there to be a lack of infrastructure within these buildings. Surprisingly, over 75% the schools that I visited had quite adequate computer labs with machines less than 4 years old, and many also had wireless internet access. I found this impressive, particularly considering several of these schools are in depressed areas where many students cannot afford to pay the full tuition.
MacArthur Foundation Grant
The MacArthur foundation recently announced a $50 million, 5 year initiative on digital literacy, including $3 million in grants to the Games and Professional Practice Simulations (GAPPS)research group at the University of Wisconsin, which including funding for more research on epistemic games.
