ulo.tricho.us

Today, I split the group up into 4 teams with the intent of them staying in those teams for the rest of the class. In the open school way, each group covered the age gamut of the class, although I was sorely tempted to make a team out of the 3 Andrews and 2 Patricks and call it Full House. Teams can earn points for good guesses or right answers during the discussion, plus points from their team’s turns in the battle arena. I had put down Physics and math as the topic, but I really started with “What is a videogame made out of?” Which was initially answered with “uh, chips?” and with some prodding and discussion was ultimately getting shouts of “ones and zeroes” and even, to my delight, “information!” We talked about the difference between hardware and software (and even firmware), what the game needs to be able to calculate, and what kinds of forces are in play during the game. We also talked about the difference between properties and state in relation to the ball, which even led to the difference between linear and angular momentum. It was pretty great. Still a lot of answers from the 8 or so geekier guys (and no guesses from either Sophie), but I gave out about 80 points for lots of good guesses over about 30 minutes of talking, leaving 45 minutes to play.

On the first day, there were few goals because even the easy bots get right after the ball and control the match. So today, we tried 4 vs 4 with no bots and all the kids on the same team; I also added the red and the blue scores so they could get it into either goal. This gave them time to look at the ball and their starting places and see if they could make something happen. After the first two rounds of everybody running all over the place and scoring 3 or 4 goals over 5 minutes, they realized that when their positions get reset after a goal, one of them is usually lined up to bop the ball right into the goal, so the game became figuring out which of the 4 players was lined up, and then letting them shoot it as quickly as possible. The high score was 32, which we added to their question points to determine who advanced to 2 final matches: The Marauders ultimately defeated Team X, while The Blazers fell to The Destroyers.

For tomorrow, I’m hoping to talk a little about how the game produces a 2D image of a 3D simulation, talk about wireframes and textures and 3D modeling, and a little about lighting and special effects; and maybe get the girls to take a couple guesses.