Reactive Games. Tangible game system for geometry learning

Abstract

From the ancient Egypt to our days games evolved continuously. Several innovations in technology made possible to play with people around the world, or simulate realities to give new experiences to players. But this evolution shows us that could be more than pure entertainment in games. Serious games offer a new vision: a way to teach, to train or even perform advertising campaigns. The use of games for teaching purposes is one of the pillars of this thesis. Bearing in mind that in our country the learning of mathematics is one of the key problems related with school failure, serious games could help professionals to detect deficiencies on the system in order to find a solution. The main goal of this master thesis is to focus on one important area of mathematics and implement a tangible game system for teaching children geometry. With the use of a tangible table, kids could interact in a physical way with the designed video games, making the experience more attractive and helpful. Additionally, it is possible to evaluate if the children improved their spatial skills by this method, acquiring useful statistics about them while they are playing. The games implemented on the prototype (one based on puzzles and the other on geometry questions) are fully functional and the system is prepared to be used. During the implementation process, different adjustments and changes respect the original idea have been made, in order to guarantee that the machine is operative and available to perform a proof of concept: let the children play and verify if the premises about learning by this method were correct.