NSF grant to develop Serious Games

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crlyttle
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NSF grant to develop Serious Games

by crlyttle » Post

I've been working on a project to use Minetest for Serious Games in a "Pod" school and found out that some grants money is available if a proposal can be written.
To prepare the proposal the following is needed:
A Primary Investigator, preferably a PHD associated with an educational institution;
A Post Graduate student not required but would be a help;
One or more undergraduate students;
Multiple 12-18 year old students to play and test the games.
Nothing is cast in stone, but I've been working on a multiplayer simulation game using USAAF pilot training material from 1944. I've currently scanned a large amount material into pdf and begun developing lesson plans.
I've also begun working on a single-player "dungeon crawl" similar to the old Zork games.
I'm in east Tennessee, but we've got the internet.
Know anyone who interested?

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cracksmoka420
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Re: NSF grant to develop Serious Games

by cracksmoka420 » Post

The thing about grants is that it's generally best to only promise things that you already know how to do. So, it's a good thing that you have already gotten started delivering your project. It's also good that you've managed to incorporate plausible defense applications into this grant (I'm assuming this is the purpose of mentioning "USAAF pilot training" here.)

I think it would be difficult to find any post graduate students who want to get involved in this project because most of us tend to work with professors at our own universities. But as a postgraduate student myself, I'd be very happy if the government gave me money to spend my time developing Minetest mods instead of being a TA for a semester (or whatever.)

What is your background? Are you a teacher? Also what is a "Pod" school?

crlyttle
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Re: NSF grant to develop Serious Games

by crlyttle » Post

Hi,
I'm a retired Registered Professional Engineer (Mechanical and Electrical Engineering). Most of my carrier was in
Aerospace. I worked on the Space Shuttle, Commercial Aircraft, and many computer development projects. Most of my projects were in embedded controls.

A "Pod School" is a very small school that could conceivably fit inside one of the shipping pods such as used on container ships. The idea was to have neighborhood schools of about a maximum of 10 students and one on-site teacher/proctor. Most of the class material could be delivered electronically. The goal during the pandemic is to continue quality early education in a safe manner while preserving some social interaction. My contribution was to simplify delivery and save on hardware cost by having Minetest and FOSS based virtual classrooms where students, and teachers could gather as avatars. That would lower delivery cost for remote learning a lot.
I chose USAAF pilot training because I got a lot of training material from the estate of Lt. Austin West, a WW II pilot. The material covers "just enough" math, physics, and general science subjects and is written to an appropriate level for modern junior high students.

To apply for the grant an interested Professor and post-doc or graduate student need to be involved. Also can include undergraduate students in various roles. I am hoping someone here knows someone looking for a project.
Also there are sub-projects. If someone needs a term project I can suggest some subjects in Anthropology, Linguistics, Education, Screen Writing, Art, History, and Game Development. It would be nice to get a grant and be paid for doing the development. Or at least get school credit for doing fun stuff. Personally, I need someone to tell me what I don't know and am doing wrong.

I have a lot of material scanned and available on line as a Calibre library. Anyone interested can send a private message and I'll provide a link.

By the way, as a learning exercise, I started development of another game called Pyramids of Cush. Attached is a storyboard image at the spawn point.
Attachments
nazi_in_africa.jpg
nazi_in_africa.jpg (719.89 KiB) Viewed 639 times

crlyttle
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Re: NSF grant to develop Serious Games

by crlyttle » Post

OOPS, wrong image.

crlyttle
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Re: NSF grant to develop Serious Games

by crlyttle » Post

Guess png images are acceptable here :) Here is a jpeg of the storyboard spawn point. Back story takes place in 1943. Current game is today.
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nazi_w_city.jpg
nazi_w_city.jpg (994.12 KiB) Viewed 638 times

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