Game - Outside The Box

These past few weeks I've been thinking a lot about the game that I have now finished creating. In my Communication Practices class we had to create a toy, a game or a tool using our crativity by disrupting patterns of thinking. I first thought of making a toy for autistic children because I thought it would be an interesting project considering the fact that i know an autistic child. I also thought of making a game that would challenge our creativity. I thought about these two options and decided to go with that game on creativity because anybody would be able to play it. Whether your a child or an adult, anybody would have access to it.
i first started by reviewing what we had learned in class:
-Creativity is a skill - it can be learned
-Thinking is self-organizing: must be disrupted
-Techniques: solve problems or self-expression
-Not always to solve problems - sometimes we just want to make things better
BOTTOM LINE: Creating ideas that have aesthetic or practical value

Thus, knowing all of this, I thought of what my game will be. I wanted to make a game with different challenges that would put into practice our creativity skill. I thought of many different exercises we did in class, such as the Random, and building things that look nice and that have a utility. I wanted to think of new exercises and to know how my game would work. Would it be a board game? would it be a projector? Would I roll dices or spin an arrow? Would there be a winner or would it just be an exercise? Would there be teams or individual players?
Hence, to answer all of those questions, I decided to go to Toy R us, Zellers and Dollarama to look for inspiration. Children have the biggest imagination, so why not go to a children's store to get some ideas.?I walked up and down the alleys several times trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I noticed Play doh and I remember that as a child I used it to create and build things. I finally had found my first challenge : building an object or a tool with play doh and giving it a function and utility. I then chose to do the same with Legos.
After this, I was stcuk for a while. i didn't really know what to do with these ideas. After discussing with my teacher John Connolly, he talked about his idea of having all sorts of little objects (like the tokens form monopoly) in a jar and a person would pick two out of the jar and connect them together by creating a new useful object. There would be infinite possibilities with this. i loved the idea and got inspired by it. I went back in the stores to see if I could find little objects, but this was my biggest problem. I couldn't find anything. I decided to find objects on the internet and print them out. However, this was very challenging because I want the people to think creatively by making a completely new object or tool. I chose my objects carefully by not putting speakers and a television screen in the same jar.
Then I thought of a fourth challenge. I sticked with the jar idea, but I put letters in it instead. A person would have to take two letters out, come up with two different words and creating something out them by connecting them.
After that i needed to find out how the game would roll and how the plyers would get to the challenges. I kept telling myself to think out of the box and break barriers. A game doesn't always have to be on a board. Then it dawned on me: what if to think outside of the box, we would take things out of a box and be creative? I decided to put the four challenges into four different boxes (pay doh, legos, random objects, letters). There would be two teams and each of them would have the same four boxes. They would do one challenge at a time, and the first team that comes up with a new object with a utility would win. I want someone to win because it gives people more of a challenge and they put more effort into the task. They also don't think as much, they just create. Because there are four boxes, if ever there is a tie, the last challenge would be to think of a new object using the objects already created with play doh and legos.

After that I gave the game a title : Outside the Box
I chose this title because creativity is about thinking outside the box (breaking barriers) and this game trains you to do that by taking random things out of a box, and create a whole new object.

I also put time into decorating it and putting the contents of the game together. I was very committed with this game and I ended up buying play doh, legos, notebooks, letters and bells.

GAME RULES:
2 teams of 2-6 players
1 notepad for each team
1 pen for each team
1 bell for each team
4 boxes containing letters, play doh, legos and random objects for each team

The first challenge consists of using play doh to create and build a new object and describe its function
The second challenge consists of picking 2 random objects out of a box and creating a new object by connecting them, and aslo describing the new object's function
The third challenge consists of using legos to create and build a new object and describe its function
The final challenge consists of picking 2 random letters out a a box, chosing 2 words staring with those letters, connecting those words to create a new object and give it a function

The first team to finish a challenge rings the bell and wins the challenge. The team that completes the most challenges wins.
If there is a tie, the final challenge consists of thinking of a new object by connecting the existant play doh and lego objects together and describe its function.

In conclusion, this game would help people develop their skill of creativity. Anybody can play. Creativity is a skill that can be learned, and it is very important to constantly develop it and work on it. This game would be very useful and educational for many people, but would also bring a lot of fun at parties, family reunions and in classrooms.

Vibrobot 09/09/09

Attribute Combinations

Boat

Made of:
wood
metal
plastic

Carry:
People
animals
cars
boxes

Powered by:
battery
sails (wind)
Paddles

Idea: As a team, we decided to build a boat that would be pulled by a wire attached to a spinning motor.

Building
We collected several objects for the construction of our boat:
popsicle sticks
glue gun
motor
battery
battery holder
markers
metal wire
fishing line

We started off by testing if the motor would in fact twist and pull the metal wire. Unfortunately, it was too thick and didn't bend very easily. We then used fishing line which is a lot thinner and more flexible. The motor was able to spin it, but it got easily tangled. We still decided to tie the string to a boat we build with Popsicle sticks and the motor managed to pull it rapidly.

We wanted to use two motors for the boat to be pulled from one side to another, but because of the line getting tangled onto the motor, the opposite motor would have to pull it with the boat. However, it was too heavy for one motor to pull.

Finally, we ended up having a boat pulled by a fishing line that was twisted by a motor. It worked well and moved very fast. We realized that this "boat" also move on land and could transport several things.

We finished off by coloring it and giving it a name (EJM Seaways), we added a flag and a couple of accessories.

In conclusion, we worked fast and efficiently as a team. We came up with a simple idea that worked well. I really enjoyed working on this project and finding new ways to make objects move without wheels.

Teammates :
Jessica Reale
Melissa Ariganello
Emmanuelle Francoeur