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The action/adventure game Grad School: HGH is the final, extended version of a BME Prototyping class project in which the goal was to produce a zombie-themed game that teaches biomedical engineering concepts. The gameplay provides fast paced, exciting, and mildly addicting rooms that the player must battle and survive through,

The action/adventure game Grad School: HGH is the final, extended version of a BME Prototyping class project in which the goal was to produce a zombie-themed game that teaches biomedical engineering concepts. The gameplay provides fast paced, exciting, and mildly addicting rooms that the player must battle and survive through, followed by an engineering puzzle that must be solved in order to advance to the next room. The objective of this project was to introduce the core concepts of BME to prospective students, rather than attempt to teach an entire BME curriculum. Based on user testing at various phases in the project, we concluded that the gameplay was engaging enough to keep most users' interest through the educational puzzles, and the potential for expanding this project to reach an even greater audience is vast.
ContributorsNitescu, George (Co-author) / Medawar, Alexandre (Co-author) / Spano, Mark (Thesis director) / LaBelle, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Guiang, Kristoffer (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to grou

A significant sub-market within student affairs has been long ignored and broken: Student housing success. Research shows that strong relationships between students that live together are crucial to the well-being and academic success of that student. The problem is that universities have not figured out a standard way to group students effectively with some universities opting to market this inefficiency as a normal part of the college experience. For our thesis as a part of Founders Lab, we created our company, RiZing, to tackle this inefficiency. RiZing addresses the student-housing gap and proves that the lack of effective matching can be solved with the right people and of course, video games. Both students and higher education institutions are desperately trying to solve this problem. General event service vendors are racing just as quickly to serve this collegiate market and are extremely motivated to work with anyone who does. As the world today is becoming increasingly digitized, the founders of RiZing believe that the solution to building and maintaining strong connections with peers is possible through leveraging technology such as video games to create strong personal bonds.

ContributorsMenna, Grace (Author) / Schmidt, Alexius (Co-author) / Williams, Jordan (Co-author) / Topasna, Eric (Co-author) / Byrne, Jared (Thesis director) / Satpathy, Asish (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2022-05
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For my thesis, I developed an educational video game titled Cannon Quest. Based around a thought experiment proposed in 1687 by Sir Isaac Newton, Cannon Quest allows players to explore a miniature, 2-dimensional solar system using real physics and gravity. My principle goal was to create an interactive model of

For my thesis, I developed an educational video game titled Cannon Quest. Based around a thought experiment proposed in 1687 by Sir Isaac Newton, Cannon Quest allows players to explore a miniature, 2-dimensional solar system using real physics and gravity. My principle goal was to create an interactive model of orbital motion, with some game/simulation elements. This allows players who are totally unfamiliar with orbital mechanics to gain at least a rudimentary understanding simply by playing the game. While the educational model was my primary goal, care was taken to ensure that Cannon Quest functions as a playable simulator. I developed my own user interface (UI), control setup, and art, as well as integrating music and animation for a more complete user experience. I also spent a significant amount of time balancing the gameplay aspects with the real physics, occasionally sacrificing reality where needed to ensure a better experience. The resulting product is simple and straightforward, while retaining much of the nuances of actual orbital motion. I also developed a website to host Cannon Quest, and better direct my playtesters from a single hub. You can visit this website at www.cannonquest.carrd.co. Alternatively, you can visit https://possiblymatthew.itch.io/cannon-quest or https://github.com/matthewbenjamin22/Cannon-Quest to play the game.
ContributorsBenjamin, Matthew (Author) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Thesis director) / Feng, Xuerong (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch (Contributor)
Created2022-05
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Description
Pokémon is one of the most profitable multimedia franchises of all time, yet few have endeavored to examine how it has reached such a status. The story of Pokémon is not only the story of its many media ventures and the people who create them, but the story of its

Pokémon is one of the most profitable multimedia franchises of all time, yet few have endeavored to examine how it has reached such a status. The story of Pokémon is not only the story of its many media ventures and the people who create them, but the story of its fans as well. Through a comprehensive analysis of developer interviews, contemporary news articles, fan blogs and forums, and existing scholarly work, this thesis presents the history of the Pokémon franchise and its fandom as never before, emphasizing four main themes of technology, nostalgia, community, and capitalism as key to understanding how Pokémon has become the titan of popular culture that it is today and how its fandom has developed alongside it.
Created2022-05