Bloodbeard:
[align=center]Project Exodus[/align]
[align=center]A giant sci-fi boardgame as a center for a weeks teaching in school[/align]
Table of Contents
Bloodbeard:
The very short pitch: Imagine 8 classes (4th to 6th grade) ~ 180 pupils. Classes broken up and reorganized in to 8 teams, some pupils from all classes. During an entire week, the teams will do different workshops all tied to a sci-fi theme. Being explorers and colonists in a far away system.
Imagine a giant system map with planets, astroid belts, gas clouds etc for the teams to explore. This gets explored and sections will be claimed by the teams through the week. See the solar systems you can enter in Mass Effect.
Imagine smaller maps, planet boards. This will be the colony the team is building. This maps is like a close up off a planet from the central map. Through the week this board gets filled with buildings, roads, factories etc.
The point is for the teams to make the strongest, best, most prosperous colony by the end of the week. Through hard work, team work and dedication in the workshops they get benefits in the game. But by working together with the other teams, forming alliances, they will get even more bonuses.
Background for the project: I’m a teacher. It’s the best job in the world. I was lucky enough to spend my child year in a private school, with room for loads of unorthodox and “free” teaching.
Personally I work in a public school. I believe in a strong public school. There’s is still space for different, new ways of teaching there. But in a time with standardized tests, lots of grades and fewer funds - that space gets ever smaller.
As long as I can make some projects that are truly out of the box, teach through gaming and give the students some completely unique educational experiences - it’s my job to give them that.
The day it’s no longer a possibility, the day the teachers will have to little influence on the subjects, I’ll find myself a new kind of job.
Point of this Project Log: Last year I made a giant RISK styled game as the center of a thematic week about the Roman Empire. 180 students participated. You can see something about that project here: Roman Risk. The actual teaching was done in thematic workshops done by my very talented colleagues. I’ve been asked to do “something similar”.
This log will serve multiple purposes:
- Get nice and helpful input from fellow hobbyists and boardgamers.
Bloodbeard:
The problem with these kind of mega projects, is getting it to take form. And getting it to take a form, where 10 other teachers need to understand the concept, make classes/workshpo that fit into the theme - and get 180 students to get engaged as well.
So as of now there’s no deadlin for this project. But I hope to launch this (and perhaps two) board game centered courses during the 2015/16 school year.
In this post I’ll try to spell out some of the setting ideas. The story behind the game and all the work that’ll be done through the week.
Setting: In a near future, the Earth is almost depleted of all useful natural resources. In an effort to survive as a species, colonization and exploration fleets and ships a launched into space (alpha centauri) - in hope of finding place for a nice chance of life and prosperity.
Options: 1) The world is almost dead and the students are the last hope for humanity.
It was pointed out by a colleague that this might kill many kind of motivation with many of the small children. Making them depressed from the get go “the world and everyone being dead”. … So despite my love of the post apocalyptic, this might not be the way to go.
2) The world is fine, we’re a bit into the future. The students are all volunteer explorers. Having a goal of creating new life, colonies for the glory of humanity.
The game would be the same. The themes would be the same. It’s all about creation. The “end of the world” basis might be better for 8th-10th graders.
A) All 8 teams of students represent Danish crews. Their motherships are named after famous and important Danes. One workshop could be something like “what would be important to bring on theis mission. what’s the essence of Danish mentality”.
B ) Every team is from a different nation / continent. So one crew is from NASA, one from ESA, Roscosmos etc. This might be more realistic than the above.
Both A) and B ) would fit into both option 1) and 2).
Ideas and input is welcome of course.
MaraLynn:
May I join your class???
The landbound side cries for something like Dystopian Wars.
Miasma:
This along with your last project (Teaching Through Gaming - Rome) is amazing, I wish that I had teachers like yourself when I was in School, maybe then I would not have had so many issues
Bloodbeard:
May I join your class????Sure. All classes in the public school system is (in theory) open. If people ask nicely and behave themselves, there's no stopping anybody from entering any class from kindergarten to university.
The landbound side cries for something like Dystopian Wars.
MaraLynn
I don't know Dystopian Wars. But where my Rome RISK was combat and war based, I would really like to avoid any possible combat in this game (or at least make is really bad business). Focussing on cooperation and alliances instead.
This along with your last project (Teaching Through Gaming - Rome) is amazing, I wish that I had teachers like yourself when I was in School, maybe then I would not have had so many issuesThank you, I take that as a high compliment.
Miasma
Dînadan:
B ) Every team is from a different nation / continent. So one crew is from NASA, one from ESA, Roscosmos etc. This might be more realistic than the above.A variation on this is maybe have each team be a different alien race, with each race having slightly different priorities, needs, etc? This would take more work for you though to make it all balanced. On the other hand it might help with getting the students to broaden their thinking, especially with the avoid combat/encourage diplomacy aspect - eg:
Bloodbeard
Race A values Unobtanium, while Race B has no use for it, thus Race B's team may decide there's no point in fighting for a planet whose only value is mining Unobtanium as they gain no benefit from it (unless taking hold of it will give them a stronger bartering position with Race A).
Or
Race C is reptilian and thus being cold blooded favour warmer planets so have to take that into consideration when choosing what planets to colonise; a desert planet would require less resources than an ice world for example.
Fuggit Khan:
Cool stuff, your students are in for a real treat (again!)
This will be the colony the team is building. This maps is like a close up off a planet from the central map. Through the week this board gets filled with buildings, roads, factories etc.What process/rules are you going to use to figure out how to build roads, factories, etc?
The point is for the teams to make the strongest, best, most prosperous colony by the end of the week. Through hard work, team work and dedication in the workshops they get benefits in the game. But by working together with the other teams, forming alliances, they will get even more bonuses.
Bloodbeard
Some sort of economic rules? Trading?
Perhaps resource management in the idea that each team (or world) has access to a unique resource that they can exploit/trade/sell to other teams?
Only one world could have fresh water, another have rare earth minerals, another has natural gas fields, mining, etc.
Trading valuable resources (with opposing teams) to build your own infrastructure would make for some interesting team work and back room deals.
I’m sure you got plenty of creative idea’s :hat off
After your very cool and successful Rome RISK game, I’m really looking forward to watching this thread :cheers
Admiral:
Ingenious project. The Roman version was good to boot, so it’ll be a joy to follow this. Short on time now, but will add input later if I can conjure up any.
Best of luck! :cheers
TheHoodedMan:
I would choose option 2) with a world still habitable for some generations.
It would be interesting to let the crews choose/propose the famous danes for their mothership names and see with whom they come up :hat (edit: and why).
Dînadan:
I would choose option 2) with a world still habitable for some generations.Just make sure you phrase it as 'famous Danes' rather than 'great Danes' or you'll end up with one named Scooby Doo.*
It would be interesting to let the crews choose/propose the famous danes for their mothership names and see with whom they come up :hat (edit: and why).
TheHoodedMan
;P
*of course this pun might not work if you're not teaching in English lol
snowblizz:
Saw a GW release for a game which used some of the BfG ships and other interesting models, tiny Stompa. tee-hee. Not sure if release helps you though.
Bloodbeard:
Project is still alive
And I’ve started working more actively on this now. About to finish the main board and have started making boardgame pieces.
Here’s my most recent thoughts on this stuff.
The week (and game) will be for roughly 180 students, grade 4th-6th (10yrs-14yrs), including special needs kids and 10 other teachers.
The setting is inspired by Interstellar. All kids will be mixed up into teams, that they stay with the entire week (no normal classes). Each team represents the crew of a spaceship, send into the unkown to find a new world.
In a central room there’s a massive boardgame. Made from an old message board. Painted it today - all black with radar green lines on it. It now has 960 squares. Each square will have a two sided tile on it, one side being “empty space” - the other being either “empty space” or direlect spacestation, astroids, gas clouds etc. It’ll also contain 8 planets (1 for each team).
During the week the teams will come and go to the boardgame and move around their mothership and thus explore the new galaxy one tile at a time.
Around the main board, each team will get an area with some wallspace and a large table. This is a close up off their planet. During the week the teams will get different classes. Depending on how they do they will gradually fill out their team space as the settle their new planet. Again having some influence on the main board.
After a week, I imangine 8 unique cultures developped by the kids. Their individual spaces being filled with models build in crafts, pictures/paintings/graphics of how their planet look (dessert, lush green, all water, classic sci-fi themes), their new state flag, in math they’ll work with setting up whatever currency, measurrements would make sense for them.
While the main board will be all explored, astroid belts mined, flagged with team colours, colours strings strung out to represent trade routes, smaller ships, fleets and more cool stuff.
Other plans contain giving small sci-fi, astronomy lectures to all students every day (we always start together), get some outside super geeks in to make some of them. Use streaming and webcams to broadcasst messages/clips/pictures into every classroom on the smartboards.
It’s all about creating an all immersive type of teaching, collective story and spreading the love of board games - despite the school system being pretty locked be outrages low budgets.
Two years ago we ran something similar with Roman RISK. A week about the Roman Empire centered around a RISK style baord game. You can check out some photos and description here (might also make my ramblings clearer): http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=14403 It was a huge succes.Motherhips
I’m trying to beg, borrow, steal and scavenge cool models to use as motherships for the 8 teams. Bugdet on a project like this i zero, so I might end up buying some personal models and use in the project.
Soon pictures will come!
BeeZharr:
This sounds really interesting, looking forward to hearing more about it. I work at a University and have been exploring games-based learning, and gamification, and trying to use it in my classes. I like how this brings together the different subjects around a theme, the students will probably learn more in this one week than a term otherwise!
Bloodbeard:
This sounds really interesting, looking forward to hearing more about it. I work at a University and have been exploring games-based learning, and gamification, and trying to use it in my classes. I like how this brings together the different subjects around a theme, the students will probably learn more in this one week than a term otherwise!I'm a very big fan of gamefication in teaching. We have two "Efterskoler" (kind of boarding schools for 8th-10th grade) in Denmark where all teaching is done through gaming, RPGs and LARP. Great schools.
BeeZharr
The grades are equal to other schools, but students have a deeper understanding of politics and history than other places.
I use simpler boardgames as well. For training problem solving, tactical skills and planning. It's all very good skills when solving math problems in the late school years.
Main Game Board
Finished painting the main game board. The Galaxy in which the game takes place. 24 x 39 tiles in totalt = 936 tiles. Having 8 teams there'll be 117 tiles pr team to explore. That's over 20 moves with the mothership pr day, to uncover the entire board - I think it's enough.
Used an old board, painting it black and painted the "radar green" grid on it. Board is 120cm x 200cm.
I've bought a green LED christmas light chain, that I'll add to the under side of the board, to have it throw a green light on the floor beneath it. gonna look cool.
This are some of the test tiles that'll be added to the entire grid. Each one laminated for sturdyness (and being able to save it for another year). Tiles will be made more equal in size and without white lines in them, just wanted to see if it works.
I've ordered 1000 black thumbtacks from china, will look much better.
Tiles have pictures on both sides. So when a ship enters a tile it's flipped and perhaps reveal something cool: spacestation, astroid belt, gas cloud etc. Many will be empty space. These will not be marked. Thus the teams will have to remember / talk with each other what they have searched already - otherwise the might waste resources exploring empty space again.
3d markers
I would love to add as many 3d markers to the board as possible. I contacted an electrician, he'll save any small bits, odds and bobs he finds. Think it'll be easy to glue some together, paint the quickly and then have some space station markers.
I've ordered different sized polystyrene balls to make the teams home planets and moons. This will look better on the board, than 2d laminated tiles.
Let me know if you have ideas for 3d gasclouds, astroid belts etc.
Rules - taking form
Winning
The center boardgame will be the theme and glue binding all workshops together. Setting being: Each team has to colonize a new planet in the new system, each weekday will count as an earth year (story wise). Friday the "winners" will be announced.
"1st place" - United System Presidency. The team with most points overall is elected leader for the next couple of years.
Ministry of Power: Most "Power" resource income
Ministry of Cultute: Most "Cultre" income
Ministry of Industry: Most "Industry" income
Ministry of Exploration: Most tiles explored
Multible victory conditions is great because it'll motivate most students.
Resources
Through out the week teacher running workshops will hand out resource tokens for good work at their discretion. Motivating teams to teamwork, individuals to do something extra etc. These can be handed out to individuals and teams.
Resources will always be earned twice daily from upgrade/building/areas on the main board and their planet boards.
Fuel: For moving spaceships/stations, building stuff. Earned for oilrigs on planet or gascloud "mining".
Industry: For building stuff - earned for mines on astroid belts/planets
Culture: For certain upgrades. Earned from doing creative projects, teamwork.
Power: For certain upgrades. Earned from workshops, from spacestations/extra ships.
Plan is to have classes spend resources to earn more resources. Aiming to win ministry posts, they want to save some stuff. But have to spend to to earn more. Classes can form trade routes by exploring "lines" to eachother and then be allowed to exchange resources.
Movement
Mothership: 1 fuel to move 1 tile.
Small ships: 1 fuel to explore unkown space OR 1 fuel to move freely inside team controlled space.
- Used for maintaining trade routes, blockade / control astroids/mines etc. No war among teams, but doesn't prevent blockades.
Space Station: 1 fuel to move 1 tile, can't move into unknown space.
Astroids: Some kind of random movement, chance to hit/damage teams buildings/ships.
Motivation
Game is fluent, no turns etc. Students walk from a class when and if they want to take action on the board, move/build etc.
Forcing a constant "react to the others" motivation and seeing how others points grow they try to earn more.
Different workshops will be encouraged to hand out different resources. As teams go to the the different workshops on different days, some teams will have more of specific resources - encouraging trading.
To do
Come up with buildings/costs/effect on home planet boards.
Come up with buildings/costs/effect on system map board tiles.
Come up with more encounters/effects/things to find on the system map.
Come up with prizes/effect on space stations, small ships etc.
Come up with 8 differently themed home planets. Dessert, water, jungle etc - ideas welcome.
Ideas and input are very welcome.
TheHoodedMan:
Hey, great ideas and work so far.
:cheers
If you do some clips for smartboards it would be cool to use something like incidents who change rules for some days (for example interstellar particle storms which Limit movement or communication, missions to find a specific Kind of planet within 3 days or something like that).
How do you plan the ressource management? How will this work?
Dînadan:
3D asteroid belts - go grab some rocks from the garden
3D gas clouds - paint cotton wool
Fuggit Khan:
A nice update, makes me want to go to school in Denmark :cheers
School in America was boring…
I’m trying to beg, borrow, steal and scavenge cool models to use as motherships for the 8 teams. Bugdet on a project like this i zero, so I might end up buying some personal models and use in the project.How about the kids make their own spaceships? See how creative they can be in kit-bashing stuff together. And no, a can of Coke is not a spaceship.
Bloodbeard
Abecedar:
................. . And no, a can of Coke is not a spaceship.RAMA says it is.
Fuggit Khan
Dînadan:
. And no, a can of Coke is not a spaceship.But a bottle of Fairy washing up liquid, some toilet rolls and sticky back plastic are.
Fuggit Khan