Speaker
Description
Gamification is an innovative approach to promoting motivation. It refers to the use of game principles (e.g. competition and cooperation) and elements (e.g. challenges, points and levels) in non-game contexts. It has proven to be a widespread and powerful technique for driving behaviour. Theoretical studies have shown that gamification potentially appeals to motivational mechanisms (Mora et al. 2017) and is a relevant approach for engagement rather than focusing on pure entertainment (Domínguez et al. 2013). Escape games and computer games have become a popular leisure activity for a broad section of the population (Demmler et al. 2014).
The creation and process of building an open-source physical and virtual mechanics-themed Escape Room will be presented. Selected topics of basic mechanics (e.g. material stiffness, equilibrium, bending, ... ) were chosen where each puzzle is directly linked to the topic. Thus, visitors can playfully engage with the questions. Additionally, they learn something about the historical or scientific context due to the interwoven story using of social media elements. The target group is primarily the interested public, school pupils and freshers but the room can also be modified for kids furthering an interest in STEM subjects at an early stage. Positive evaluation results and experiences will be shared.
The physical Pop-Up Escape Room will be presented on-site for the conference participants to experience and can be re-built. The virtual room can be visited any time (available on gaming platform itch.io[2]). The virtual room has been developed in the spirit of open and transparent science using the free and open-source game engine Godot[1]. All material is available open-source on a GitHub repository[3] with all instructions and development files being shared.
GAMEchanics, the mechanics-themed Escape Room is an example for using gamification as a method to engage with topics in mechanics with a memorable experience. It has been featured e.g. in Tagesschau, Tagesspiegel[4][5] etc.
This project was funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation.
References:
Demmler, Kathrin; Lutz, Klaus; Ring, Sebastian (Hrsg.) (2014): Computerspiele und Medienpädagogik. München: kopaed (Materialien zur Medienpädagogik, Bd. 11).
Domínguez, Adrián; Saenz-de-Navarrete, Joseba; de-Marcos, Luis; Fernández-Sanz, Luis; Pagés, Carmen; Martínez-Herráiz, José-Javier (2013): Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes. Computers \& Education 63, S. 380–392.
Mora, Alberto; Riera, Daniel; González, Carina; Arnedo-Moreno, Joan (2017): Gamification: a systematic review of design frameworks. J Comput High Educ 29 (3), S. 516–548.
[1] https://godotengine.org/
[2] https://gamechanics.itch.io/
[3] https://github.com/SVFS-TUBerlin/Project_GAMEchanics
[4] www.tagesspiegel.de/themenspeziale/bildungundforschung/
moderne-lehre-an-der-tu-berlin-spater-im-job-gibt-es-auch-keine-musterlosungen-12542045.html
[5] www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/projekt-an-der-tu-berlin-ein-neues-spiel-soll-studierenden-die-gesetze-der-mechanik-erklaren-10419310.html
