For three days beginning September 6 the White House Educational Game Jam invited a select set of professional game developers and academics to create innovative educational game prototypes over single weekend, with the resulting games presented at the White House Executive Office Building.
There were 23 teams and about 100 participants. The team sizes ranged from 1 to 9, with most around 4-5. It was a mix of major companies and schools. Examples of large companies were: Ubisoft, Sony and Rovio. Small companies were: BrainPop, GlassLab and RocketMind. Academic teams included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Melon University, American University, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the Smithsonian and UMBC.
“Our game came out quite well, and we got a bunch of great comments,” says Marc Olano, faculty advisor and associate professor of computer science and engineering.
- Eliot Carney-Seim, BS, Computer Science, Junior
- Paul Tschirgi, BA, Visual Arts, Senior
- Calvin Kumagai, BA, Visual Arts, Senior
- Alex Grube, BS, Computer Science, 2012
The students developed the game Bob Blob Bomb Lob. It is a 3D game to teach step-by-step algorithmic thinking and debugging while you save a hapless blob from the bomb he has ingested. You can see a video of the game below.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/kItXl6e1TsI]
Tags: COEIT
