Game testing

Roll up! Rollup! It's carnival time at Invention Squad. What better way to beat off the winter blues than to design a great fair game and play it with your friends? This was definitely the funnest, wackiest session yet. We challenged the kids to make a transportable/foldable set-up and to test it by playing it with their friends and parents. This is cardboard prototyping and design by play- a natural for kid experimenters.

My favourite (given it's that season) was the Whack-a-louse game. You have 30 tries to bop those pesky critters amongst the curls of hair (don't try this at home) and lucky winners get (drum roll) a Louse Exterminator (LE) certificate and some free shampoo! Love the topical humour in this design.

There were other games on a throwing or shooting theme. 

Including this nicely built fixed cross-bow platform.

This is a skittle target game. 

Testing a tossing game.

In this well thought out design you have to flick the corks up the ramps and through the holes (avoiding the turning fans at the back). This design could be automated in later prototypes with a turning mechanism to operate the fans. 

This was a roller obstacle course.

In this super kinetic recycling scavenger race you sort food from trash with your whacking stick. Careful to balance on your frisbee board along the course. Then wash your fruit for the prize. 

Loads of action, lots of laughs.

Make something Awesome: Winter after-school sessions

A 7 week session is starting up on Mondays at Artscape Youngplace. There will be a pick up at Givins Shaw school. Students from other schools are welcome to join us at Artscape. 

Here's our schedule:

Week 1: “Toddler alert” Squeeze it, chew it, pull it, shake it. Using colour and texture, invent a new toy for toddlers.

Week 2: “Animal Treehouse” Plan and build a cosy tree-home for critters.

Week 3: “Groovy grub” Young entrepreneurs create a special meal, logo, brand and advert for their own restaurant.

Week 4: “Ready, set, go!”Make a super speedy junk-mobile and race your friends.

Week 5: “Set design” Create the stage for a production of your favourite story: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Cinderella.

Week 6: “Fairground game” The Wackamole moles have had enough! Invent a new game for the Ex. and test it by playing it.

Week 7: “Can-Am 2015” Design a new uniform for Canada in the 2015 Pan-Am games

For more information or to register, please email us: info@inventionsquad.ca

And here's our schedule for a 7 week session at Niagara Street on Tuesdays (starting on Jan 27th): Week 1: “Lunchbox” Invent a smarter way to dine in style at school. Week 2: “Animal Treehouse” Plan and build a cosy tree-home for critters. Week 3 : “Groovy grub” Young entrepreneurs create a special meal, logo, brand and advert for their own restaurant. Week 4: “Ready, set, go!” Make a super speedy junk-mobile and race your friends. Week 5: “Set design” Create the stage for a production of your favourite story: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Cinderella. Week 6: “Fairground game” The Wackamole moles have had enough! Invent a new game for the Ex. and test it by playing it. Week 7: “Can-Am 2015” Design a new uniform for Canada in the 2015 Pan-Am games For more information or to register, please email us: info@inventionsquad.ca

Parapan-Am 2015

With the Parapan-American Games coming to Toronto this summer, we asked our Invention Squad to design a game for teams of blind players and one participant in a wheelchair. In creating a new sport, we're not making an object, we're designing a working system.

In order to better understand the constraints of this task, we had a Q and A with guest participant: John Willis. John is an inclusive designer (meaning he designs with people of all abilities in mind) and is also blind himself. He talked to the kids about what sports are fun for him to play and what things he tries to avoid at all costs (fast moving balls, tall hard obstacles).

With these user constraints in mind, we brain-stormed to come up with a blended game. We had lots of ideas as a group. Elektra and Zachary thought of a flag capture game, where the wheelchair participant has five flags and two teams of non-sighted players try and find the flags, with directions from two sighted guides. We test played this for two rounds.

When users test a game it is really obvious what works and what needs improving. Overall the verdict was that this game was quite fun, but that:

• The flags need to stick out from the wheelchair all in one place (to avoid the crazy groping)
• There should be some way of limiting the amount of time a blind person can touch the chair  (same reason as above). Maybe a ref is needed to enforce this?
• There needs to be a way to slow the wheelchair down -or maybe there should be multiple wheelchair participants (to "confuse it up" some more)
• The flags could be different textures for the two different teams
• There might be blind people with flags (should these guys also be able to get flags)?
• Our guest designer, John pointed out, that we might want to modify the game so that the blind participants have more autonomy i.e. they are experiencing the game through their own senses more. 

Round one of prototyping done. Lots of great design modifications by our young inventors.