PlayPower

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PLAYPOWER
Playpower.png
Founded2008
FounderDerek Lomas, Daniel Rehn, Jeremy Douglass
TypeNon-profit organization video game industry
Purposeeducational games
Location
  • San Diego, CA
Websitehttp://www.playpower.org
Playpower 8-bit logo

PLAYPOWER is a 2008-started non-profit organization designed to create free educational computer software for low income families in India and other developing countries. In 2012 the project was reformed as Playpower Labs, a for-profit company that focused on educational games for mobile platforms. Playpower Labs now offers world-class education technology consulting services to some of the biggest learning companies in the world.

Original Concept[]

Playpower cheap 8-bit game console, Bay Area 2008.

The 8-bit learning games were designed to run on 8-bit systems, using designs and processors that are in the public domain e.g. Famicom clones which patents have expired,[1] which allows the games to be run on very low cost computers.[2] For $12, families can buy a compatible computer with an 8-bit, 6502 processor, a keyboard, a slot for game cartridges, a mouse, and two game controllers. Lacking its own monitor, the computer plugs into a TV screen for display.[3] Part of the software should be acquired as source code of abandoned educational games, like Number Munchers and Lemonade Stand, and ported by the open-source community.[1][4]

At least three games were in production as of early 2010, "Hanuman Typing warrior", "Hanuman's Quiz Adventure" and the "Mosquito game".[5] The project opened the source code for these three games, written in assembly.[6] One of them teaches players how to type, which can greatly improve their earning potential in the job market. Another is a multiple choice question game, somewhat similar to that featured in the film Slumdog Millionaire. And finally, a different game was created to raise awareness of malaria (which infects 1.5 million people a year in India) by allowing players to kill mosquitoes and accumulate points toward antimalarial mosquito nets.[2]

Playpower Foundation[]

The organization was founded in 2008 by Derek Lomas and Daniel Rehn, who were students at the University of California at San Diego at the time, and Jeremy Douglass, a postdoctoral research fellow at the same school at the time.[3]

In 2012 Daniel Rehn announced on his private homepage the PowerPlay project as "finished".[7]

After 2012 the Playpower project was transformed into Playpower Labs and offered mobile platform educational games via Apple's Itunes store and Google's play store.[8][9][promotional source?] The company now offers world-class education technology consulting services to some of the biggest learning companies in the world.

Reception[]

PLAYPOWER won the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Competition in 2009, for which it received $180,000 to help fund its activities. More than 100 volunteer programmers from around the world have signed up to help develop games.[2]

The project was noted broadly[10][11] in the academic domain[12][13][14] and by the web community like BoingBoing.[15]

Playpower Labs[]

Playpower Labs was started by a group of learning scientists and technologists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and DA-IICT in Gandhinagar. The company is now led by Derek Lomas (CEO), Kishan Patel (CTO), and Nirmal Patel (Chief Data Scientist). Playpower Labs began building online games to target high-impact skills for struggling learners. The initial products of the company won awards from the National STEM Game Competition,[16] the Marvel Educational App Grand Challenge, and the NYC Department of Education. Derek Lomas and Nirmal Patel conducted original research on the efficacy the learning games and large-scale online experimentation.

In 2016, Playpower Labs started providing data science, design, and software development services to some of the biggest education organizations in the world. The research team at Playpower published award-winning scientific research in the field of educational data science. Most recently, Playpower Labs was received an India-wide mention in online news for its work with India's Ministry of Education.[17][18] Playpower is also expecting to spin-off a new AI in Education startup LearnSense.

See also[]

  • Uzebox

References[]

  1. ^ a b About the $10 Computer and Playpower by Derek Lomas (2010)
  2. ^ a b c Old-style computers get new life in developing countries, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 10, 2010
  3. ^ a b $12 Computer: Playpower Wants to Save the World 8 Bits at a Time, Wired, March 11, 2009
  4. ^ playpowerorg.ning.com (archived 2010)
  5. ^ Introducing the “$10 Computer” DESIGN CASE STUDY 1:“HANUMAN, TYPING WARRIOR” Designing Appropriate Educational Games for a $10 Computer in India by Kishan Patel 1, Ashita Dadlani 2, Manushree Vijayvergiya 3, Aman Jain 3, Harshit Daga 3, Jay Panda 3, Vipul Raheja 3 and Derek Lomas, 1 Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology, 2 Netaji Subhas Institute of Information Technology, 3 International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, 4 Carnegie Mellon University, USA
  6. ^ Games from Playpower's workshop in India by James Lomas (on January 24, 2010)
  7. ^ Playpower Foundation (2008–2012) on danielrehn.com "An open-source community for designing and distributing learning games to ultra-affordable computers in developing regions."
  8. ^ Mathworld on itunes.apple.com
  9. ^ Playpower on play.google.com
  10. ^ playpower-80s-computing-21st-century on theguardian.com (2009-11-04)
  11. ^ 8-bit-computer-now-available-for-all-your-homebrewing-needs on Engadget (April 31, 2009)
  12. ^ "The power of play: design lessons for increasing the lifespan of outdated computers." by Derek Lomas, Anuj Kumar, Kishan Patel, Dixie Ching, Meera Lakshmanan, Matthew Kam. DOI: 10.1145/2470654.2481379. Conference: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, aka Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’13), Paris, France (April 27-May 2, 2013)
  13. ^ "10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10" Archived 2013-08-18 at the Wayback Machine MIT Press book, ISBN 9780262305501, by Nick Montfort, Patsy Baudoin, John Bell, Ian Bogost, Jeremy Douglass, Mark C. Marino, Michael Mateas, Casey Reas, Mark Sample, and Noah Vawter. "All royalties from the sale of this book are being donated to PLAYPOWER, a nonprofit organization that supports affordable, effective, fun learning games. PLAYPOWER uses a radically affordable TV-computer based on the 6502 processor (the same chip that was used in the Commodore 64) as a platform for learning games in the developing world." (2013)
  14. ^ "Connecting Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning to Policy and Practice: CSCL2011 Conference Proceedings" 9th Intl Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Conf, July 4th-8th, 2011, in Hong Kong. Published as part of, Volume 2, publisher International Society of the Learning Sciences (isls.org), editors Hans Spada / Gerry Stahl / Naomi Miyake / Nancy Law (2011)
  15. ^ The gaming computer you dreamed of in 1983 by Rob Beschizza on BoingBoing (Mar 27, 2009)
  16. ^ University, Carnegie Mellon. "News Brief: Lomas Wins for "Numbaland!" - News - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2021-12-07.
  17. ^ Nov 10, TNN / Updated; 2021; Ist, 14:22. "CBSE to use data analytics to curb cheating in exams | Delhi News - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 2021-12-07.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ DelhiNovember 9, India Today Web Desk New; November 9, 2021UPDATED; Ist, 2021 17:32. "CBSE to use advanced data analytics to prevent cheating and other exam irregularities". India Today. Retrieved 2021-12-07.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

External links[]

Retrieved from ""