An educative game for childrens
The project Osmo, a game for children which combines real world and virtual world. We now live in interesting times: digital technologies increasingly invade all aspects of our lives, including the upbringing and education of children. Now for the little ones (about older children and not talking) there are a large number of gaming and educational apps for different platforms, including iPad. Good or bad? The big question.
On the one hand, it’s good. We already can’t escape the fact that the future belongs to the virtual world. Without the knowledge and skills to use a computer children can be very hard to find a good job or even just to feel “like a fish in water” in the modern world, so we have to teach and the sooner we start, the better and the easier it will be to master all.
On the other hand, it’s not so good. Habit from an early age to use tablets and computers leads to the fact that children are insufficiently developed, for example, fine motor skills, which are necessary for proper brain development. To learn to type – not the same thing as learning to write with a pen and paper (and from the point of view of influence on the brain in particular). Therefore, the virtual world in any case should not replace the real world.
That is why we found it interesting to talk about the project Osmo – children’s play project, which involves the sharing of real world and virtual world. Use of the tablet (which kids love), along with the game and real objects is, we think, very promising direction, which we need to work on. Simply because now we have a situation in urgent need of this type of game and educational tools.
So, the project Osmo – children’s game designed by Tangible Play startup, combining virtual reality and ordinary reality. The project is based on the technology of Leap Motion technology motion capture of human for the implementation of human-computer interaction.
View a promotional video of the project, it best describes the essence of the game:
Osmo comes with a small mirror that attaches to the tablet and, in fact, provides adequate transfer of user actions to the tablet. Games for the project now there are three: “Tangram”, “Words” and “Newton”. The first game you saw in the promo, this version of Chinese puzzle game available (and supplied game) parts to make figures that are shown on the screen of the tablet. If performed correctly, you move on to the next level. Game “Words” – for those children who already know how to read and write, they need to make from the cards the names of those objects (fruits, animals, household items, etc.) that appear on the screen of the tablet. Finally, the “Newton” is something like “Cut the Rope”, where mixed real and virtual world and you have to throw the ball directly into the goal, which is displayed on the tablet.
The kit release is scheduled for autumn (and by this time, the developers promise to add more games and features), though we can already pre-order. But a game that combines the real world and the virtual world is a very sound approach that takes into account both the interests of today’s children and how they need to properly educate from the point of view of neurophysiology. I hope that will continue to appear more and more projects of this kind.