The Rules of Nano

Newspaper Article

Final Boardgame Images

List of Possible Molecules for the Game

Molecule Card List

• Heart (Biol)
  

• Fiber
  
• Stain Resistant (Mater)
  
• Anti-Bacterial
• Buckyball
• Carbon Nanotube
• Cancer Detection (Biol)
  
• Solar Power
• Electronic Ink (Comp)
  
• Stained Glass (Chem)
  
• Bullet Proof Vest (Mater)
  
• Cosmetics
• Sunscreen (Chem)
  
• Tennis Racket
• Airplane Body
• Metal that doesn't rust
• Ceremic
• Doesn't Break
• Doesn't get Dirty
• Fullerene
• Laundry Detergent (Chem)
• Windows
• Nano Computer Processor (Comp)
  
• Bruisable Plastics (Mater)
• Power Lines (grid) (Mater)
• Stitches-Fusing (Biol)
• Military Grade Disinfectants (Chem)
• Washable Bed Mattress Tops
• Nano Silver Band-Aides (Biol)
• Hard Drive (Comp)
• Food Containers (Biol)
• Nano Filters (Chem)
• Nano Cooling (Comp)
• Computers Inside Cells (Comp)
• Glass Treatment for Clarity
• Flex Power Joint & Muscle Pain Cream
• 3m Dental Adhesive
• Canola Oil that Blocks Cholestrol
• Ski Wax
• Tennis Balls
• Golf Balls
• Foot Warmers
• Nano Silver Wound Dressings for Burn Victims
• Rocket Fuel (Nano Aluminium) (Mater)
  
• Plastic That Conducts Electricity
• Scapels Doctors Use
• Solar Powered Cell Phones and Laptops
• Moutain Bike Handle Bars
• Racing Bike Frames
• Computer Displays
• Automatic Teller Machines
• Energy Crisis
  

Conversation with Bob Cook, Georgia Southern Prof.

The necessity for outside contacts in the field of Nanotechnology is invaluable. If they are unrelated to the project, and involved in the nanotech field, they offer some knowledge and certainly objectivity toward the game we are designing. In order to cold call people you need to have a clear understanding of some of the terminology, so we needed to submerge our brains in the frothy bath of nanotechnology. Hopefully some of the terminology would rub off. Kat and I researched online; By visiting website after website, and continually going back and forth from Wikipedia.com, Dictionary.com, Sciencedaily.com and a few others, it made the quest much easier. The process works something like a dictionary endeavor. When looking up one word, there is many times a word in the definition that you are not quite clear about. So the snowball effect starts. Word after word needs to be looked up to understand the intimate details of Nanotechnology.

Dr. Bob Cook, Savannah State, professor, A couple of years ago, he was a part of the first US robotics Competition using Legos. The themes vary depending on the year, students or participants are given a matte,a nd asked to create robots to perform tasks. The students are between the ages of 9 and 14yrs. of age, which is the age that is found to loose interest in the sciences. Each robot performs 9-10 tasks. Cook said that the idea was for them to get an understanding of what the scientists were trying to do on a nanoscale. They would do this by taking a robot that had a given set of tasks which the kids programmed into it. The robot would go around and perform these tasks which consisted of moving a piece of pizza to a “nose”. The more tasks performed the more points achieved, and thus creating a winner!

Cook, said a Lego kit, can become a better way of learning for kids than say a neuroscience laboratory. His point is that a game is easier to understand than neuroscience. The idea of teaching kids through very hands on activities can capture their minds and imaginations better. It exercises the brain on a more whole minded way of thinking, and allows for multi-dimensional learning. He also touched on the need for a connection between the scales of nano and human. Like what exactly is a billionth of a meter, how human scale person understand that scale?

Max and Kat’s key take a way’s from playing the game of “Life”

· Anticipated playing the game before it was even out of the box

· We were then faced with assembling the game and reading the rules

· We then found pieces were missing and we had to improvise

· The parts of the game that were interactive were more fun

· The game was fun because of the real life connections that could be made

· It also promoted learning/interaction of participants

· The game also had piece holders and the layout was important to set-up.

Contextual interview, Daffin Park, ages 10-11

To go into context: Kat and Max went to Daffin park to observe the kids from ______________middle school, while playing at recess. The first thing kids in the age group of 10/11 were run up to us and see what we were talking about to the teacher. They were very interested and wanted to give their input. ALL AT ONCE! What is the meaning of play, how do they do it, and what were some of their favorite activities involving playing with games.

Specifically the words of role playing genre kept coming up. This is where they were able to become some person and have that person perform tasks, online. The game of Millsbury kept coming up with several of the 10 year olds. Also the idea of Neo Pets, Monopoly, Clue,, although they didn’t sound like he knew. The first thing when we said boardgame was Monopoly. Then the little boy got into the game of clue.

The kids separated themselves into groups, playing football, musical instruments, jump rope, some were cheering, others playing on the equipment, and other forms of tag/running around expelling energy.

The professor, Mrs. Anderson, talked about how the kids had a short attention span, and that meant they could probably only keep up a game for maybe 20 mins. This is all speculation, but from an expert on kids attention spans. The kids would work best if they were in groups of 3 or four. The less the numbers, the more that they can involved individually, and work together to actually have fun and learn.

Some of my website links...

Education website 9-14 ages http://www.eduplace.com/math/brain/

Georgia Tech School of physics: http://www.physics.gatech.edu/featured/

NTSI Website: http://www.nsti.org/procs/Nanotech2005v1/1/T66.11

Wikipedia Nanotech article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology

Bob Cook Core Game website: http://bcook.cs.georgiasouthern.edu/lego/index.html

Bob Cook Nanotech Game website: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nosek.html

Science Daily Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050607013558.htm

Nanotech News : http://www.nanonewsnet.com/index.php?module=Pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=4&pid=11

Nanotech Directory: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Nanotechnology