March 14th π game all day at Q2L!

We are running our brand new SMALLab game CIRCLES all day today at Q2L to celebrate the π day!

“The children really got into the game, and you could hear good reflection statements and questions. they were learning.”  – Daniel O’Keefe, Curriculum Designer at Institute of Play

CIRCLES, game design by Kanyang Li , is a multi-player territorial game that reinforces the concept of Circumference = 2 x π x Radius. In this game, players are divided into 2 teams and each team holds the correct value of π in their controllers. Teams are competing to capture as many circles as possible with matching circumferences. Each circumference is created by pairing their π value with a roaming radius in the space. The process of creation is companied with a robotic voice saying “1, 2, 3, and a little more!” which is directly connected to the π lesson that players had prior to the SMALLab experience. If the circumference matches the target circle perfectly, the team captures the circle and scores! However, a mismatch offsets the team’s π value and deactivates their controller temporarily until the value counts back to π again.

SMALLab Team:
Kanyang Li <SMALLab PL/Game Designer>
Lena Kotani <Q2L Math Teacher>
Daniel O’Keefe <Curriculum Designer/Learning Expert>
Shulamit Ponet <Mission Lab Game Designer>
Richard Bowman <SMALLab Tech>