STEAM 8:
Designing Games
About the Project
Eighth-grade STEAM students were given the task of designing an educational game for elementary-aged children. They used the design thinking process to help them understand the needs and abilities of younger children, thus allowing them to design games that are suitable for that age group.
What is Design Thinking?
A process used by designers to tackle problems.
The design thinking process is broken into steps that can be repeated as needed.
Empathize: students researched typical behaviors and abilities of young children. They also conducted in-person interviews with children in Ramaz Early Childhood Center (ECC).
Define: based on their research, students defined what skills their game would focus on.
Ideate: students brainstormed ideas that would promote the skills they wanted to focus on.
Prototype: students created low-fidelity prototypes demonstrating their ideas. You will see the prototypes in their presentations.
Unfortunately, this project was halted due to the closing of the school. If the students were able to continue their design, they would have finished the process by going through the last two steps.
Test: test their prototypes with ECC/Lower School students and observe which aspects succeed and which aspects need revision.
Evaluate: make revisions based on the feedback they received from their testing and repeat the testing phase.
