Young Inventors at Work Class Summary 4/28/14

with Leigh Ann Yoder

Game Day

"Life of Death"

Today was all about fun!  

Each team had several minutes to introduce its game and give a brief overview of the purpose and directions.  

One team designed "Life of Death," a game of luck rather than skill that requires the players to collect the most hearts.

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"Laugh 4 Your Life"

The next team created the hysterical "Laugh 4 Your Life" game complete with a bag of embarrassments. The goal of this skill-based game is to make people laugh.

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"Cops and Robbers"

Our next team made "Cops and Robbers," where Cops need to collect cash and Robbers need the loot. This game of luck for two to five players had some twists and turns that could land you in jail.

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"Neon Dogs"

Another team shared '"Neon Dogs,'' a game of luck for young children not yet reading, yet able to do some simple math. You win by getting to the end of the board with the most points.

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"Color War"

Finally, this team introduced "Color War," a game of luck that also requires some drawing skills. This team-based game requires teams to work together as they race to collect their mixing colors.

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The students spent the majority of class time playing each other's games. At the end of class we spent time offering constructive criticism. Many of the ideas suggested were validated and appreciated by the makers. The teams have been asked to bring their games to our final class in June to share alongside our year-end projects. Many teams have already decided to implement some of the suggestions and improve their games.

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Third Panels

We also discussed the third panel of our projects. The third panel will require the students to complete their own project or set up a small challenge for their classmates. For this week they are to decide what the focus of their third panel will be and email me their idea for approval. If they are struggling to come up with something they should let me know early in the week so I can offer some ideas. I have already sent links to several students in the class and will offer more below. Please remember that these projects must have my approval before they move forward. The third panel will be a documentation of their work with their project displayed.

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Homework

Semester Project: Email me your third panel concept by Friday, May 2nd.  
These sites offers many ideas:  
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas.shtml  
http://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/index.html

For those students in Software or Computer Engineering they can use any of the activities from here:  http://csunplugged.org/activities
They can also try their hand at Scratch or use Khan Academy to teach themselves some basic programming skills. Lego Mindstorms is another option.

The Story of Inventions (Optional): Read chapters 15 & 16

Board Games (Optional): Teams can continue to improve their board games