🤖 Mission F1: Create Your Familiar
Overview
What will happen:
The Facilitator Familiars are out of commission following their stressful encounter with the protean signal.
The campers have calmed them but the Academy still needs Familiars to keep watch over the academy for unseen threats. It is now up to trainees to create their own Familiars and take up this responsibility.
This is the resolution to the end of the Earhart Station Plot where the NPC’s familiars went a little nuts.
Trainee's Mission Objectives:
Learn and create about how to make familiars
Familiars are an integral part of the academy and in order to be fully-fledged agents they need to form their own Familiar attachments.
Create a way to detect the protean
Something about radio signals. Part of their design should be a specific reaction to a radio signal given off by the protean.
Materials & Classes Covered
Materials:
Mission Tech: Colored LED Light strips, Affiliated connections, boards, wiring, and batteries necessary
Microbit box "GO" pack, or a box constructed from paper
Prop: Anywear Facilitator Familiar examples
Universal Crafting Material
Non-Player Characters (NPCs):
Anywear Academy Faciliator
Character(s) encouraging Trainees to explore their creativity in Familiar making AND to help ensure their LED light strip wearables are functional/can utilize coding learned in previous classes to the best of their abilities.
Show Trainees their own example of a Familiar and their recommendations for building one!
Prerequisite Classes:
Lights & Colors 2, 3
Servos
Repair
Structure
Note: The time duration represents the expected length of the role-play scene and crafting for the activity.
Please account for components such as class time, lunch & breaks in your scheduling.
Exposition (15-25 minutes)
Location: Anywear Academy HQ
The NPC Anywear Facilitator explains in more detail what and why the Familiars are for. Subpoints to cover:
Facilitator Familiars are now out of commission, giving the students reason to have to create their own.
Familiars are one of the final stages for becoming a fully fledged agent of the Anywear Academy. The participants are getting a crash course because of the emergency state of the Academy.
Familiars form bonds with their creators. The relationship is symbiotic, both the Human and Familiar get something out of it and there is no exploitation.
Familiars are complex organisms that combine technology and social emotional awareness fueled by a powerful AI.
Familiars have personalities that are fairly unique
Familiars are sensitive and that comes with benefits as well as the risk of overstimulation
Familiars are very responsive to physical touch for comforting purposes.
Initial Incident (15-25 minutes)
Location: Anywear Academy HQ
Trainees are shown examples of these in action and start to develop some ideas of their own for how to proceed. [GOAL 1]
Rising Action (5-15 minutes)
Location: Anywear Academy HQ
Campers must create their Familiar - remembering that the Familar must also be functional (have a way to detect radiosignals given off by the Shapeshifter) [GOAL 2]
Climax (2-5 Minutes)
Location: Anywear Academy HQ
Campers have created their first familiars but they are new and untested. They need field experience and to be socialized with others. This leads to them taking familiar on a mission and sharing their design with other campers.
Resolution Denouement (5-10 minutes)
Location: Anywear Academy HQ
Campers discuss what they’ve learned with their instructor/mentor.
Now’s the time to prompt them to reflect on what they’ve learned, who they’ve met, and how they feel about their Familiar design so far. ( what code does the micro:bit need to activate the Familiar? Why did they design the Familiar the way they did?)
Players should leave some documentation behind on how to create Familiars and their decisions behind their design in case other trainees don’t go on the next mission.
Documentation can include a paste bin of applicable code, a scrapbook page, or a group white board that they can collaboratively work on.