No computer games beyond algebra? What what?!

[Maria Droujkova]

My kid asked me for a computer game "like Wuzzits, but about calculus." I could not find a single computer game about calculus, other than Jeopardy-style quizzes for terms. For that matter, I could not find any math games beyond the beginner algebra.

Can you recommend math or "hard science" (physics and such) computer games at high school or college levels? 

 

Cheers,
Dr. Maria Droujkova

moebiusnoodles.com
919-388-1721

-- .- - ....

 

[David Chandler]

I learned Racetrack as a student in the 1960's and used it as a teacher to introduce 2-dimensional concepts of inertia and acceleration.  I found a wikipedia description of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_%28game%29 .  I have also seen computer simulations of it, but I think it was for now-outdated computers.  It would be a simple enough computer project.

Another computer game I knew, way back, was Moon Lander.  You had a certain amount of fuel and had to use it to manage retro rockets to bring about a soft landing on the moon before running out of fuel. I haven't seen it recently, but haven't looked yet.

--David Chandler

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[David Chandler]

This is typical of the kind of tracks we would draw on graph paper.  Each move must duplicate the previous move + or - 1 square horizontally and + or - 1 square vertically.  You have to be careful about building up too much speed because you may not be able to slow down enough to make a curve.

--David Chandler

[David Chandler]

Here is a nice computer implementation:  http://harmmade.com/vectorracer/#u-turn

--David Chandler

[Maria Droujkova]

David, I played the Racer game as a kid too! Love it. 

Let me clarify what my kid and I are seeking, because "like Wuzzits" is not enough of a description. We look for games that help people learn ideas or skills relevant to formulated and formal mathematics. Moon Lander is an excellent example: it helps you to develop your intuitions, but it does not take you to the level of explicit patterns and formulas (at least the version I played did not). My kid is trying to gain mastery of formal patterns, and some fluency in applying them. We can find nothing beyond the level of Dragon Box and Green Dots (simple algebra, equations and graphs, correspondingly). 

[John Mason]

Maybe 'games' is misleading here. NRich is a website with all manner of
explorations at all levels of sophistication. Isn't it important,
perhaps even necessary, to take the initiative and explore things for
oneself, perhaps with the aid of 'microworlds'.

I have a number (quite a large number) of applets that I use in plenary,
which are stimuli and support for investigation of generality arising
from the particulars of what is presented on screen. I can even describe
them without the applet, but the applet supports exploration. However
because they do that , they indicate certain directions of development,
and in the hands of an individual who is likely to press lots of buttons
to see what they do (rather than being admitted to more sophistication
or complexity by completion of a 'level') they require real discipline
on the aprt of an individual.

Two examples:

A) There are 5 (p?) chairs around a circular table, one of which has
been chosen at random to be 'special'. If you click on a chair, it goes
red if it is the special chair, or if the special chair is beside it;
otherwise it goes blue. In how few clicks can you be guaranteed to find
the special chair? The applet allows for up to 20 chairs and
modification of the 'rule for going red'. The task is excellent for
provoking people (including young students) into reasoning logically,
using cases and reasoning by way of contradiction.

B) you are shown a magic square, but the numbers soon fade away. If you
colour one row red and one column blue, then the red sum and the blue
sum are the same, so you can eliminate the cell coloured red and blue.
This is a configuration of red and blue for which the sum of the red and
the sum of the blue MUST be equal. What other patterns of red and blue
colourings have this same property? (the applet starts with 3 by 3 but
then goes to 4 by 4 and more). You can try to justify someone else's
arrangement of colours, or you can try to characterise all
configurations. Yu can also weight cells so that they may be used 2 or
3 or more times.

These are not 'games' but they are stimuli to more formal maths. I am
also developing a suite of applets for calculus of polynomials as in:

C) You are shown initially graphs of two quadratic polynomials
(adjustable by varying the three points which determine them). One has
two zeros. Treat that one as the denominator and the other as the
numerator and predict as much as you can about the graph of the rational
polynomial.

Once you have predicted, and the displayed, predict what happens when
you make small (or large) adjustments to the quadratics. The applet
then lets you have polynomial of degree up to about 7 to use as
numerator and denominator!

JohnM


JohnM

On 20/11/2014 06:02, Maria Droujkova wrote:
> David, I played the Racer game as a kid too! Love it.
>
> Let me clarify what my kid and I are seeking, because "like Wuzzits" is not
> enough of a description. We look for games that help people learn ideas or
> skills relevant to formulated and formal mathematics. Moon Lander is an
> excellent example: it helps you to develop your intuitions, but it does not
> take you to the level of explicit patterns and formulas (at least the
> version I played did not). My kid is trying to gain mastery of formal
> patterns, and some fluency in applying them. We can find nothing beyond the
> level of Dragon Box and Green Dots (simple algebra, equations and graphs,
> correspondingly).
>
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 4:31 AM, David Chandler <david...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Here is a nice computer implementation:
>> http://harmmade.com/vectorracer/#u-turn
>> --David Chandler
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 1:17 AM, David Chandler <david...@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This is typical of the kind of tracks we would draw on graph paper. Each
>>> move must duplicate the previous move + or - 1 square horizontally and + or
>>> - 1 square vertically. You have to be careful about building up too much
>>> speed because you may not be able to slow down enough to make a curve.
>>> --David Chandler
>>>
>>>

[Maria Droujkova]

John,

We do a whole lot of exploration at home, many of them wild. We have always been unschooling, and researching, and having adventures. My kid never took a test, for example. What my kid is seeking specifically from a game are these services:

- A leveled structure with a reasonable learning curve for concepts, so that there is no admin overhead for selecting each next piece (such as chasing prerequisites, testing if the activity is too hard or too easy)

- Gamified mechanisms for time and task management, especially progress tracking

- Developing fluency (recall, shortcuts, patterns, and other technical performance criteria) on some frequently encountered tasks in the target area of math

- A pleasant package (aesthetics, sounds, visuals, gameplay) that supports the flow

As an aside, it's very curious to see how appreciative an unschooled teen can be of services such as time and task management. I guess experienced explorers and adventurers know that logistics is the key to successful campaigns!

As much as we love NRich, and of course your awesome tasks, it's not what we seek right now. I think A, B and C could be turned into games like we need with some work on the interface. 

[Donald Cohen]

Martin Gardner in his Scientific American articles had many games.

Debbie Reese invited me to work with her math classes in Iowa. She used my calculus materials, then went on for a Ph.D. and started the work on these games, sponsored by NSF.

Debbie Denise Reese, Ph.D.

CyGaMEs PI -- Senior Educational Researcher

Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University

316 Washington Ave.

Wheeling, WV  26003

Voice: 304-243-4327  FAX: 304-243-2497

E-mail: deb...@cet.edu

http://cygames.cet.edu   http://selene.cet.edu   http://www.cet.edu

http://wju.academia.edu/DebbieDeniseReese

 

SeleneNewsAwardsTestimonialsResearchFundingOpportunitiesEvaluationsContact Us

CyGaMEs

Watch TV report on YouTube.

Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced design is a way of applying cognitive science metaphor theory toward the design of computer-mediated learning environments. It's not as complicated as it might sound.

Think of it like this. When a toddler burns a finger, the child's senses of sight and touch connect the flame with the pain. Scientists call this embodied understanding, and it's the basis for human learning and metaphor making.

At the Center for Educational Technologies® we believe that people learn science easier when their own embodied experiences help them better understand the physical world around them. In other words, when people can relate a science concept to something they've experienced or already understand, they are more likely to grasp the new or challenging concept.

We're applying that approach to the design of serious educational videogames. Backed by a grant from the National Science Foundation, our CyGaMEs project—Cyberlearning through Game-based, Metaphor Enhanced Learning Objects—works to make hard science concepts more intuitive to learners.

The CyGaMEs approach employs cognitive science, informatics science, and analysis methods to help game designers have more control over what games do—that is, to help players learn by doing, discovering, and inquiring. CyGaMEs creates environments in which each player's idiosyncratic route through a game still moves toward the game's learning goal. All the while, CyGaMEs helps learners grasp challenging science concepts by spurring them to build metaphors.

CyGaMEs also is developing and refining new ways to assess and report learning that can be applied to other cyberlearning activities.

We're using a videogame we've already created to help in our research. Selene: A Lunar Construction GaME, is a prototype online videogame in which players learn how Earth's moon was formed as they create their own moon and then pepper it with impact craters and flood it with lava flows. We're looking for players between the ages of 9-18 (previously 13-18), along with adult recruiters to confirm players' ages, get parental consent, and gather other players. To sign up as a recruiter or play Selene, visit the Selene website.

Contact us to learn more about the CyGaMEs project and theory and to take part in the research or to study the data.

Race track - at U of IL- they had to shut it down because students were spending too much time playing it (circa 1972). I think it was made by Yerg Nievergeld. It involves velocity and acceleration

Nim- I had a 8th grader that listed all the positions to leave your opponent, for you to win the game.

Sprouts

Tower of Hanoi- produces an exponential function, then uses logs to find the inverse. See http://www.mathman.biz/html/rataninversetower.html

Shuttle puzzle- involves a quadratic function and finding the inverse. See http://www.mathman.biz/html/rataninversepegeq.html

Conway's Game of Life. One of my students had Conway as a teacher at Princeton, then went on to get a Ph.D. in Physics at U of CA, Berkeley.

Don

--

"Learning, Living and Loving mathematics.."- the core of Don's teaching and books, observed by Seth Nielson.

Donald Cohen

1905 S. Prairie Winds Dr. Apt. 204

Urbana, IL 61802

Tel. 217-840-4559
Email: doncohe...@gmail.com   
Don's Mathman website URL: http://www.mathman.biz

See Don's new clickable  A Map to Calculus with student works and sample problems from Don's books at every node


 

[David Chandler]

Google "physics applets".  There are hundreds of them.  Here is one good collection.  There are a lot more.
http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/

These still probably don't qualify as games, but they are quite useful in connecting the math to the phenomena.

--David Chandler

[Christian Baune]

Programming is a real alternative to game.
As an example you can use Unity game engine and create a scene with a simple cube:
- How to have the camera looking at cube ?
- How to position the camera to always look at a face normal ?
- How to spin the cube around its local Y vectors using a transformation matrix ?
- How to spin the cube around the world Y vector ?
- How to constraint the camera to a sphere ?
- How to make the camera "walk" on the sphere ?
Etc.

Example of game : a first person "pacman" on a sphere.

There's a lot to do.

Kind regards,
Christian

[Charles Cossé]

On Wednesday, November 19, 2014 at 10:57:44 PM UTC-7, MariaD wrote:

>For that matter, I could not find any math games beyond the beginner algebra.

Hi Maria,  I realize that this is an old thread, but it's new to me ... and I feel like commenting, as an education software developer of sorts.  What I would like to say is that 15 years ago, when I began exploring ideas in education software, I had envisioned developing something in physics, actually, as that is my field, and where my interests mostly lie ... and I just never got past the algebra type games.   And I've reflected on that lately, which is why I'm posting.   There are a couple of reasons.  One is that, of course, computers are a natural fit for math apps up to algebra, just because that's what they can do best, i.e evaluate stuff and test if true / correct, or not.   I think that partially explains  the preponderance of software up-to the algebra level.  It becomes a whole different ball-game after that ... something like Calculus, to be covered by software applications, will necessarily require (i think) several more specific applications, each relatively narrow in scope.   This is less "bang-for-the-buck" for the developer, and is just an entirely different animal when you think about what could be made and how to make it.  I mean, the computer isn't going to evaluate an integral in closed form ... not without a heckuvalotta auxiliary helper code underneath.  Then there's the fact that the distribution of students falls-off rapidly after algebra, so, again, the software will not enjoy near the uptake as algebra software.  And in my case, I just never got past the algebra software, by which I mean, I still haven't found the Holy Grail of algebra software, so entertaining more complex designs and ideas seems kind of getting a bit far ahead of ones self.  

Crossword puzzle builders are one versatile type of software which lends itself to any subject, as far as vocab and concepts treated in text, at least.   IOW, you can throw a bunch of Calc words and concepts into a crossword puzzle ... just an idea.   But I think those are some of the main reasons why there isn't so much out there ... i.e. because after algebra the software must become much more specific and it's a much riskier gamble for the developer as to whether all that work will result in an effective product that was worth the effort.  

I've been thinking about what I could develop as physics software for 15 years, now, and I still haven't really come up with any ideas that are worth the effort.   You can make demos, etc, but demos don't really provide what you're talking about, i think.  What I do think is worth the effort is a set of 3D plot widgets that allow you to load a ntuple into a browser and interactively explore a data set by plotting 1,2,3 colums against each other, and then applying further cuts to the data via attachable sliders for additional parameters beyond the initial 3Ds. One of the values of this is to see the same data plotted in different ways, a looking totally different, visually.   Like plot the same 2-3 variables using time-series, 2D scatter, 3D scatter, 2D Lego, XY, cell plot, histograms etc ... with the same numbers ... to impress how the same data can look entirely different when plotted in a different style.  I have an actual piece of software in mind, here, which is something developed by the Nirvana Project at Fermilab in the late 90's.  It's on my bucket list to re-develop that application (called NPlot & Histoscope) in JavaScript and WebGL.   Again, I'm speaking as an edu software developer of 15 years with a Ph.D. in physics, and that's the best bang-for-the-buck and most useful next piece of software that I can see putting effort into.  Okay, I'll shut-up now.  Bye :)

[LFS]

I just noticed a game called "Pi and the Lost Function". Anybody ever buy/try it? https://www.atltgames.com/shop/

Cheers,
Dr. Maria Droujkova

moebiusnoodles.com
919-388-1721919-388-1721

-- .- - ....

 

[David Wees]

What about "A Slower Speed of Light"? http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/

Not sure on the calculus game though. Sounds like an opportunity to me.

David

--

[Troy A. Peterson]

Watching this thread with great interest.

Troy

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[CLIME Guy]

Whoops. That address for green globs is greenglobs.net

On Feb 6, 2015, at 9:10 AM, CLIME Guy <clim...@me.com> wrote:

The best software for algebra and beyond beginning algebra is Green Globs (http://greenglobs.com)

-Ihor

[CLIME Guy]

The best software for algebra and beyond beginning algebra is Green Globs (http://greenglobs.com)

-Ihor

On Jan 12, 2015, at 2:55 AM, Charles Cossé <cco...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Pramod Ponnaluri]

Do check out our board game on geometry - Three Sticks. It is a very creative and challenging game that uses 3,4,5 Pythagorean triple as a building block. The game is currently being crowd-funded on Indiegogo. You can pre-order your copy here - http://igg.me/at/threesticks.

[CLIME Guy]

Correction: http://greenglobs.net

-Ihor

On Feb 6, 2015, at 9:10 AM, CLIME Guy <clim...@me.com> wrote:

[Peter Farrell]

If a kid has the patience to create a 2D or 3D game, he or she could stand to learn a little trig to make the balls bounce realistically off the wall or floor or each other. This guy has a great tutorial for creating just such a "physics engine" of one's own in Pygame.

[Clemens Ott]

Would a visual programming environment with which math examples are programmed with different goals and incentives?
 

[Maria Droujkova]

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 2:37 PM, Clemens Ott <diyprog...@gmail.com> wrote:

Would a visual programming environment with which math examples are programmed with different goals and incentives?
 

That looks more like a gamified course. While badges, points, etc. can be great, they aren't enough to make an entity into a game. 

Having said that, do you know a good environment like that?

Cheers,
Dr. Maria Droujkova

NaturalMath.com
919-388-1721

-- .- - ....

 

[Clemens Ott]

HI Dr Droujkova

Let me think and look around, with the environment I wanted your feedback for, is a programming environment, the outcome are usable programs, sharable with family and friends. The game is centric around social interaction with people around the user.  The projects can be also created by the teacher specific to the class level and topic. 

I will look further for a game of the type you are specifying.

thank you for your feedback

Clemens Ott MSc.

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