Ben Franklin was a most certainly a geek.
Everyone has a little geek inside them. But how much is too much? Turns out there are many geek tests. But here’s one that we cooked up for our own readers.
If you check more than four of the items below, you’re probably a bit excessively geeky.
__ You put two (or more) GPS devices in one car to compare their accuracy.
__ On chilly evenings, you snuggle up under the covers with a nice warm power brick.
__ Your house has so many LEDs you don’t need a night light.
__ You go to a friend’s house for a dinner party, and end up running disk utilities to check for bad permissions.
__ In choosing a hotel, free Wi-Fi (by the pool) is the deal breaker.
__ You wake up in the morning with an ear bud in your nose.
__ You simply can’t pass up a bin full of discounted power strips.
__ The clerk at Radio Shack goes on break when you come in the door.
__ You know the location of every power outlet in Newark’s C Concourse.
__ You ask the UPS guy to stay for a demo of the gadget he just delivered.
Did you check more than four? Yup, you’re a geek.
(Feel free to contribute!)
Warren Buckleitner
I was up early, trying to shoehorn a few more new titles into this issue.
One of these was GameStar Mechanic, the new flash-based game design toolkit. I was especially interested to see how GameStar Mechanic compared to MIT’s Scratch, in part because the publisher, E-Line Media, is co-sponsoring a programming contest in which I’m a judge (the National STEM Video Game Challenge Developer Prize).
I was tired, and I hardly wanted to play another game. But GameStar pulled me in. Before I knew it, it was time for lunch, and I had advanced in rank to “League Newbie,” having published my first game. As you can read on page 8, GameStar’s self-correcting template-based game development method is worthy of your attention. And if you’re curious about how it compares to Scratch, it doesn’t. GameStar Mechanic is about editing classic “causual” games (ala maze games like Pac Man; and side scrollers like Super Mario Bros.) Scratch is more about programming, with routines and subroutines. Both expose children to a lot of coding.
But it also was interesting to learn that GameStar comes with a subscription plan that offers extra features and content to children who pay. In addition, it uses automatically renewing subscriptions, unless you notice the warning email and opt out.
When kids and busy parents are involved, I think this is a bad idea, but I’ll leave that question to you (I created a post where I go into this issue in more detail, at http://childrenstech.com/?p=2589). In the meantime, have a look at GameStar Mechanic, but be careful — you might get hooked.
GameStar Mechanic is a well-designed game creation toolkit that took five years to create after being passed from grant-to-grant, between non-profits and for-profits. Last month, it was released, so we did a review.
We found it to be easy to sign in and play, but also noted that it uses a velvet rope model (also known in the industry as “freemium”), in combination with the practice of automatically renewing your credit card at the end of your subscription term. The cost is certainly reasonable, at $6/month for the home version, however, you have to make sure you cancel in order to avoid being charged. In addition, after a few days, you can’t get a refund.
For those feeling less than optimistic about today’s youth, have a look at the letter I received tonight, from one of the Scratch programmers at Mediatech from our camp this summer.
Because he is a minor, I’ve withheld his name. But it is easy to go to the Scratch website and give his program a try. Keep in mind, the following letter was written by an intrinsically motivated middleschooler, with no editing.
Dear Mr. Buckleitner,
Our new game, Ultimate Sonic the Hedgehog has finally made it to the Scratch website. Feel free to play with it!
Cheats are down below. Without further ado, I 99.999999% recommend downloading this and play in presentation mode because this game lags when on the website. The website will lag projects so it is recommended to download it.
Ultimate Sonic the Hedgehog:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/SSEntertainment/1297637
Cheats:
99999 Rings
When in menu, click on Journal and type in:
“rings give me power”
Once you do this, you’ll suddenly be in Inventory. Then type in this:
“more power”
Then, you’ll be transported back to the menu. Then type in this:
“sonic the ultimate hedgehog”
After that, a big explosion will appear. Hurry and type in:
“now”
Then to prove it, go to Journal, not Inventory, then you’ll have your 99999 Rings to use on all of the items and level ups.
Note that if you fail this, you’ll have to start the cheat all over.
MAX Attack
Once you’ve collected 99999 Rings, no more or no less (you can collect them or cheat), go to Journal and type in this:
“maximize power”
Then type in:
“seriously”
NOTE THAT CHEATS INCLUDE SPACES
Passwords:
*Knuckles’ Fist Multiplier x5:
A5H1lurPa9
*This cheat will, however, divide your defense by 5 also. If you are a beginner, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Sonic’s Endurance (10000 HP):
d0GRq365jS
**Ring Bracelet Tripler
RINGx3fupo
**You can only use this password if you have the item, Ring Bracelet.
Hope you enjoy! I’ll make a challenge mode of this and the sequel.
[name withheld]
NOTES
This game illustrates a few lessons for designers:
• Kids love surprises. The better they are hidden, the better they are.• Older children on the edge of formal operational thinking (fifth grade and up) are prime candidates for an open-ended language like Scratch.• It is important to have a conversation about the definition of “mashup,” “fair use,” “creative commons” and other content ownership issues.
• What does the concept of a “cheat” mean for other forms of lesson design?
• Because this student is under 13 years of age, I can’t tell you his name. But I can tell you that his software company is called SuperSpeed Entertainment, and, at the bottom of his email message to me was this footer:
“Don’t ever waste time. You have a life to live.”
Good advice for us all!