With the topic “Design and development of an escape room for the Mathematics lessons for lower and middle school”, a team of students Camerloher-Gymnasium Freising is now among the winners of the Bavarian State P-Seminar Prize, with mathematics as the main subject.
The team wanted to name the Chair for Applied Software Technology as an external partner because some members of the group learned important programming skills and agile development methods in the Introduction to Software Engineering lecture ,offered by this chair in Summer 2021. The seminar was structured according to the Kanban method and the game architecture was based on the model of the small games developed in the tutorials.
The P-Seminar Prize
From the press announcement of the Bavarian State Government:
The competition is advertised annually, where successful projects for study and career orientation Bavarian high schools are honored. When selecting the award winners, the conception, implementation and result of the P-Seminars is considered. In addition to the project idea, it is also important to consider the objectives and project planning, the contacts with extracurricular partners, and the consideration of study and career orientation. The application of methods of project management and teamwork as well as a final presentation of the work results is also taken into account when rating the projects.
A P-Seminar is a project seminar that extends over almost three half-years and includes two hours per week and is occupied by pupils of a high school in Bavaria. Accompanied by a teacher, the pupils work on an application-related project, which gives them the opportunity to get an overview about the wide range of training, study and career opportunities and to become aware of personal wishes, expectations and abilities. In addition, cooperation with external partners enables profitable insights into the requirements of the working world.
The Project
The project, named “Planning and designing an escape room with the game engine Unity for mathematics lessons in lower or middle school”, is an interactive learning game based on the Unity engine. The principle of the game is based on the fact that a player has to solve a series of puzzles in an “escape room” with his avatar in order to free themselves from it. These puzzles are based on the learning plan of the lower and middle school. In order to achieve this goal, the P-Seminar split into individual teams, each of which dealt with a part of the implementation of the escape room.
More information and a download link to the game can be found at the project’s website.