I was introduced to Genius Hour/Passion Project/20 Time in my Anatomy & Physiology class by my teacher Mr. Orre. This is my blog to help track my process and share my experiences in doing this project.
This project entails allowing 20% of class time for students to pick a project in their interest and to develop an outcome by the end of the semester. This project allows for creativity and exploration of what students have an interest in or are passionate about, a break from the seemingly endless stress in a high students life. 20% Time in schools has been gaining momentum around the country and many students and teachers have shared their experiences. This idea came from Google's own 20% policy, where employees are given twenty percent of their time to work and innovate something else besides their current project. Once the results of success were shown, it was introduced to other high-tech business and quickly started to gain recognition.
At first, I was quite hesitant about this as I have never done something of this nature before at school.
I never considered myself as creative or "thinking outside of the box" type of student and was unsure of what was to happen in this project.
When I first started looking into ideas, my ideas were quite scattered and didn't know how to narrow my interests. I looked into kids......nutrition.....health......neuroscience......computer science......
I was unsure of how to connect my ideas together and to create a project that would best encompass these ideas together to produce a project that I was equally passionate about and could equally learn the most from the outcome.
After much thought and consideration into this project, I finally came up with an idea I wanted to execute. My project idea is to create/program an simple web game with the purpose of increasing cognitive brain function, especially geared towards children.
This style of games has emerged in recent years and has increased popularity through social media and technology. Games like Luminosity, Elevate, Brain HQ, etc, targeted this idea of creating games/exercises that target brain areas such as memory, attention, and processing speed. Direct results from players have shown that these games do work and have extensive scientific research behind them.
To do this project completes many different steps and will take a lot of time and research in my own time. I am willing to so this as I believe this topic is very interesting, will help me learn a lot in the process, and is definitely something I am passionate about.
- First, I will research more in depth to understand cognitive brain function and how the brain functions. I will focus on the topics of memory, concentration, problem solving, thinking speed, and mental flexibility. This knowledge in neuroscience will help me in the process when I am trying to create a game.
- Next, I want to learn basic computer programming and game development skills so that I can adequately create a simple game using my skills. I believe that this step of the process will be the hardest as I currently have limited knowledge in computer science and this is definitely not an easy subject to pick up upon.
- Lastly, I want to create a simple web game by combining the first two steps and to create the final outcome. Once this is done, I wish to possibly test this out on a few people, ranging in age, and test the results.
I know that this project entails a lot and am ready for whatever obstacles come my way. My goal is to finish creating a game but if I do not get to finish my game by the end of the semester, I hope that I will at least finish the layout/story board of my game so that I can easily program it in my own time later on.
I will track my progress and achievement through bi-weekly posts on this blog and to share my experiences of what I currently learn or what obstacles I am facing.
I am excited and nervous to embark on this journey of my 20 Time Project. I am excited to work on this project and gain knowledge and am to see the final outcome. On the other hand, I am nervous as to how I will be able to accomplish such tasks, manage my time, and make sure everything is thoroughly in depth to the best of my ability.
We exercise our bodies through running and weight lifting but most of the time we don't workout our brains. Coming up with a program to exercise the brain is a great idea! My grandpa uses luminosity and absolutely loves it. Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteTeenie Schlossareck
I'm quite interested in your idea and I can't wait to hear more about your findings. I think that since we are learning about the human body, we should make an effort in exercising our ability to think and store memory.
ReplyDeleteWhat may be a problem is building the program. Another thing to consider is that there are a variety of brain stimulation games, including apps, so you might want to consider looking into those and see which ones seem to be the most affective in order to gain more data.
I like this idea because I have played similar types of games. What I liked most about these games was the challenge, which motivated me to keep playing so that I could improve. To design your game, I would suggest looking at popular games that already exist and trying to incorporate your exercises into it. Once you've finished your game, how will you test if it actually works?
ReplyDeleteI like this idea because most people believe video games are bad for your brain and your health but a game like this could actually benefit people by stimulating the brain and working it out
ReplyDeleteThis is a legit idea! Many children and teenagers are glued on to their phones and computers so they can play games, have fun and also increase brain connectivity! I like it.
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