Applejack A new take on educational video games

The Client Proxemic Technologies A startup company looking to use interactive technologies to address problems in higher education Lead by Dr. Brian Moriarty and Dr. Elizabeth Lennon

The Problem The United States currently ranks 5 th in overall global competitiveness 48% of students entering undergraduate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programs fail to earn their degree Proxemic believes that a way to improve global competitiveness is to reduce this high exodus rate of students from STEM programs

The Solution Increase student engagement in the subject matter to increase retention of information Video games provided a familiar and well liked medium Motion controls through Microsoft’s Kinect provide rich interaction and an increased level of engagement

The Game A dungeon crawler adventure game that uses introductory calculus concepts as a vehicle for combat and puzzle solving Important for game to feel like a traditional video game, not an educational one The use of calculus as a gameplay mechanic is justified through the game’s story The player takes on the role of Isaac Newton in an alternate timeline where his work creating calculus is unknown to the public The “power” of calculus must be used to stop those who wish to silence Newton’s work This gives the player a much more engaging experience, because they are not simply solving problems on a computer screen, they are working towards a narrative goal

Learning Through Gaming The game focuses on basic integration concepts, including: Integration by substitution Integration by parts Order of integration Each level of the game reinforces a specific concept, presenting the player with progressively harder problems as they move from beginning to end The end of each level includes a progression barrier in the form of a challenging problem The problem must be solved to progress to the next area, ensuring mastery of the current concept

Learning Through Gaming Exploit the reward structures of video games to incentivize learning and promote exploration in the game world At the end of the level, the player is given a “report card” with a detailed breakdown of their performance and a ranking within their class Achieving certain ranks or collecting enough in game currency can be used by the class instructor to exchange for rewards including extra credit on homework and exams Locked treasure chests and secret areas of each level provide players with valuable rewards but are blocked off by difficult problems This incentivizes players to replay sections they have completed and further master the concepts

Technologies Unity Game Engine C# Microsoft Kinect SDK ZigFu Development Kit PrimeSense NiTE Natural Interaction Middleware

Motion Tracking Joints on the body are tracked by ZigFu middleware ZigFu produces joint objects for the developer to manipulate Gestures are created using the location of these joints

Motion Tracking The game is currently tracking the users’ hands and shoulders The hands will be used like a mouse cursor when below the shoulder The user can select objects in the scene, and UI

Motion Tracking The hands will be registered as gestures when above the shoulders Left hand above left shoulder to turn left Right hand above right shoulder to turn right Both hands above and between both shoulders to move forward

Under the Hood The framework we created for the game includes a number of classes: Actor – An entity in the scene that has no logic AIController – Logic for NPC’s and the player (The player is an AI) PlayerController – Logic for the player’s Actor, but in our case it contains an AIController. We give commands to our main character EventBus – A global signaling machine to let everyone know that an event has occurred. i.e., an Actor has died, or an Actor has been attacked (Singleton) Factory – The Factory is a singleton that contains blue prints for creating actors, items, or anything that may eventually be added to the game IProblem – A generic problem that will be used in order to solve a puzzle, an Integral in our case Inventory – A container for items that a player or NPC has

Under the Hood The framework we created for the game includes a number of classes: Item – An object that the Actor can contain Inventory – A container for Items that a player or NPC has StateMachine – An object used to transition between States States – An action that an Actor can do UIManager – Manages the UI, and when to display it on the screen IDrawable – A piece of UI to be drawn LevelManager – Manages the Level, and how to handle specific events InputManager – Handles all types of input, in our case input from the Kinect

Integral Class Problem Algorithm: Take the length of the problem to be generated as the input For each segment, generate a random number between 1 and 20 Power of x is determined by position in the problem – 1 Generate lower bound with random number between 1 and 5 Generate upper bound with random number between lower bound + 1, and 10

Integral Class Answer Algorithm Four answers are generated for each problem One is generated using correct definite integral formula One is generated without division One is generated without raising bounds to the new power One is generated by taking the derivative instead

Gameplay Two categories, combat and puzzles, both of which require solving integrals Combat: When the player engages an enemy, they will be able to select a spell from a “spell bar” that runs across the bottom of the screen The player will then be presented with an integral to solve, and answering correctly will result in the selected spell being cast Answer incorrectly, and the enemy will attack you

Gameplay Two categories, combat and puzzles, both of which require solving integrals Combat: There are three types of spells: fire, water, and electrical Each enemy type has a specific weakness Casting a fire spell on a water based enemy results in less damage dealt to the enemy, and requires more correct answers before an enemy is defeated Casting spells that match an enemy’s weakness presents easier problems to solve, and deals more damage, requiring less correct answers before defeating the enemy Players thus become more powerful as they master the material

Gameplay Two categories, combat and puzzles, both of which require solving integrals Puzzles: The problems that are required to solve puzzles are much more challenging than those during combat This keeps bonus areas of levels accessible to only more skilled players, and ensures mastery of the topic as players are required to solve a puzzle to complete a level Since puzzles take place out of combat, there is no risk in breaking up the flow of battle with problems that take a long time to complete

Interface

Demo

Future Development Future student teams will continue developing the game going forward The current state of the project is a completed framework for future teams to build on and a basic version of our ultimate vision of the game New levels can easily be added without having to worry about the backend, and different types of problems, or even different subjects, can be swapped in and out

Questions?