The Circuit – Ivan, iurri, Rene, Enrique

There is a lack of skilled trade workers in America. Workers like electricians, welders, machinists, that are important for manufacturing and construction are not being brought up. According to the ManpowerGroup, the gap between skilled trade jobs and other jobs will become more acute.

With all this in mind, we have decided to create a board-game targeted at grade school kids. We are looking at kids between 7-12 who are just getting into science. The goal of the game will be to complete a circuit three(3) times to win. Each time the circuit is completed a light will shine indicating that they completed it. In order to complete each one they will be asked a series of questions, for each question answered correctly they may complete one part of the circuit. They will have to answer five(5) questions correctly in order to finish one circuit(so 15 in total). The goal of this is for them to have a hands on approach with electricity and engineering. We think that if they get to see how they, with their own hands, can work something that looks so technical, they will take an interest and want to pursue it. The game we are making is not designed to be something with high replayability, but something to grab their attention and get them interest in electronics and electrical engineering. We need to get more kids interested in science as earlier ages when they’re more impressionable. If we can get to them early on there is a higher chance they will pick up a skill trade like electrical engineering and help fix the skill trade job market. This will in turn benefit everyone overall.

Throughout the semester we will need to do a few things. Some in-depth research on when kids start learning science, particularity electrical science. Once we find this we will find exactly what age group we are working with. This is very important because currently we only have an idea. Knowing the ages we are working with will help us to customize the questions-cards to their level. We also need to know exactly how intricate the game needs to be made. After we know all this, we will need to research materials for the board-game. Then it’s just a matter of putting it all together.

We will complete the project in steps. First, all the research and information will get gather together. This will include online research but also speaking to teachers to see how we can cater to their needs. We will work on all that together and we have a GoogleDrive set up where we are all dumping the research that we find. We will also be communicating over Skype, but also meeting in person when we need to put the board together for the game. Once the research sufficient, we will gather all the materials and proceed to design the board. After the design we have to actually build it. Then it’s just a matter of testing the game and finalizing everything.

At the end of all this we will learn more about electrical engineering. We will also have a better understand of the school system and maybe figure out why there is a lack of electricians and electrical engineers.

The materials that we are going to use

  • chipboard
  • crystal board
  • acrylic

We are going to use the laser cut with different setups

 

for circuit project

for circuit project