May 26 Bringing The Hobbit to Life Through Board Games
One of the hallmarks of Mysa is interdisciplinary learning. Through hands-on projects that bring together many subjects, students can delve into learning in a fun and exciting way. This semester, our tween students read The Hobbit, then created a board game using the book as inspiration.
Creating the board game allowed students to develop many ELA and Makerspace skills, including character and plot development, reading comprehension, coding, design thinking, digital design, digital fabrication, 3D printing, laser cutting and art. As with all Mysa projects, students worked at their own pace, using a checklist to help guide them.
Game Development
To begin planning their game, students created their heroes and planned their journey, thinking carefully about a challenge their characters would need to overcome.
Students developed the setting for their game by coding a Scratch animation, using their own hand-drawn character.
Creating the Game Board & Pieces
Once the kids established the storyline, characters and setting for their game, it was time to create the board and pieces.
Using Adobe Photoshop to enhance their characters, students printed and cut them using the Silhouette Studio app and the Silhouette Cameo. After laminating their characters, they placed them into bases they made on the 3D printer.
Students sketched their initial game board design on paper, then used Fab@School Maker Studio to create a digital design, fabricating the board on a laser cutter and decorating it with good old art supplies. They created cards, dice and other game pieces using the Silhouette Cameo and Fab@School Maker Studio. Each student wrote their own rule book, thinking about the game’s audience, objectives, characters and rules, complete with a bio about the inventor.
We can’t wait to play each other’s games!