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International Games Day 2015

When we heard about the annual International Games Day @ your library, Curtin Makers jumped at the chance to be involved and registered early to receive three free games. This worldwide event promotes the value of play and learning and provided an excellent opportunity to raise awareness of the Curtin Library Makerspace.

Last Friday 20th November students were able to take a much needed break from their exam preparations with fun social activities.

Curtin Makers set up a variety of card, board, online and MaKey MaKey games to encourage students to interact, learn, and strategise with each other. Participants enjoyed games, such as Dixit, Timeline, Go and Minecraft. Those who played Pandemic were challenged by the collaborative objective of the game. For the competitive amongst us it was unusual to not have one winner at the end.

We were joined by Dr Silvia Lozeva, from Ethics, Equity and Social Justice, who shared her passion for the strategic and intuitive traditional Chinese game, Go. Using player’s guides she talked onlookers through the philosophy of the game and conveyed its complexity.

The MaKey MaKey games promoted inventive and tactile play by using MaKey MaKey circuit boards, conductive items, such as PlayDoh and aluminium, and user-coded games developed through the Scratch website. Those who played battled against each other with shields and swords and tested their reflexes and concentration in a colour challenge.

Overall everyone involved had a fun afternoon and enjoyed expanding their gaming repertoire. Thanks to all the awesome people who joined in and embraced the Curtin Library Makerspace initiative.

Following this event, Curtin Makers intend to make games available on a regular basis to encourage students to remember the value of play in their University learning experience.

By Meg Harders & Sue Conyard