1. The Benefits and Drawbacks to Playing Video Games
By: Garrett Wildt

2. Topic
Benefits/Drawbacks to playing video games

3. Driving Question
What are some of the benefits players receive from playing video games? What are its drawbacks?

4. Thesis Statement
Many players who play video games wouldn’t have guessed that playing video games could actually improve visual skills, hand-eye coordination, fitness, and other improvements to real-life skills. Some of the drawbacks of playing video games are possible addiction, decrease of fitness, and increased of aggression.

5. Interesting Facts-Benefits
Enhance visual skills
Improve hand/foot eye coordination
Lose weight-Dance Dance Revolution
Cope with distractions, i.e. pain
Better understanding of history-Age of Empires, creativity-The Sims, economics-most strategy games, literature-Halo, Dante’s Inferno
Gives people who join the army, an overview of what they can expect during combat-Modern Warfare, Battlefield: Bad Company
Encourages cooperation and teamwork
Simple gaming could end up giving you a job. Movie clip.

6. Interesting Facts-Drawbacks
Cause addiction to the player
Gain weight
Slight or major gain in aggression

7. Product-What I did
Prove that video games can help improve visual skills.

8. When
On February 11, 2010, Craven Community College’s Student Center hosted a video game expo.

9. How I did it Made eight people read an eye chart
I then made them play Modern Warfare 2 for five minutes.
I then made the eight players read the eye chart again to find out if any improvements were made.

20. Data
For the Non-Gamers on the first try, the average number of letters said correct was 92%.
For the Gamers on the first try, the average number of letters said correct was 93%
On the second try for Non-Gamers, they got a 99% average of correct letters
On the second try for Gamers, they got a 99% average of correct letters.

21. My Mentor
My mentor was Coach Barr, I believe he was the best person for me because he is a teacher and I was planning on teaching a class about my experiment.

22. Connection Between Paper and Product
My paper says that video games can enhance vision, I decided to put that to the test and found that is does in fact, enhance vision.

23. Successes and Challenges
Successes: I created an experiment along with leading through the whole process, I also created my own website from scratch, I finished all assignments on time, I found a lot of facts.
Challenges: It was difficult trying to think of a product for my project.

24. Future Plans
Just like I had planned my whole life, I plan to work for a large video game company after I get a four year degree.