This CCLI Phase 1, Exploratory Project is using the enormous popularity of video games, specifically their power to captivate and motivate people (particularly young people) to engage in activities that are often long, difficult, and that require high-level critical thinking skills. The project is attempting to harness this deep level of engagement by developing a video game for teaching one of the most difficult and abstract courses in the mechanical engineering curriculum: Dynamic Systems & Control. Project staff are developing a game that has the look and feel of an action-packed commercial video game, but also features a sophisticated engineering simulation of an automobile. Students are devising feedback control strategies to drive the car, rather than using a steering wheel or other game controller devices. Project staff are conducting research to determine whether the game-based class instruction improves student learning, and whether student engagement is enhanced by the video game. The latter will be tested within the framework of flow theory using a survey technique known as the Experience Sampling Method. Results are being presented at conferences and published in scholarly journals. The software is being designed to be portable, inexpensive and easy to use.
