From gravity-defying platform games to science puzzles loaded with informative trivia, the 2015 winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge never cease to amaze. Learn more about each of the winners and their game designs by exploring their profiles below.

Middle School Winners

• Matthew Bellavia | Gravity Galaxy
• Lance Dugars | The Brink Walker
• Brooklyn Humphrey | Maze Kraze
• Ethan Pang | Science Survivor
• Cole Nutgeren | Pyromania
• John Ripple and John Korhel | The Cube’s Journey
• Sanja Kirova | Ezcape

High School Winners

• Zack Harmon | Gongbat
• Olivia Thomas | Colorless
• Gabriel Rocero | In Search of Purpose
• Thomas Cannon | Peg Leg Patrick’s Buoyancy Adventure
• Thariq Ridha and Umair Zaidi | B.L.O.B.
• Lexi Schneider | Body Builders

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Brooklyn Humphrey, 13, was inspired to build her first video game in an engineering class at her middle school. “I was learning how to program robots,” she explains, “plus my dad was trying to learn how to make video games, and I wanted to try too.” The Auburn, Washington resident won the Middle School Unity award in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge thanks to her game Maze Kraze. To advance through the game, players navigate complex mazes, collecting coins hidden along the way.

When she’s not programming, Brooklyn enjoys playing volleyball and basketball, hanging out with her friends, and playing games on her phone. She’s inspired by local athlete Megan Huff, her science teacher David Chernicoff, actor and comedian Steve Harvey, and her dad, Kevin. After high school, she’s interested in becoming an orthodontist.

Brooklyn recommends that new designers set realistic expectations in order to be successful. “Start small,” she suggests, “don’t try and do too much.” From experience, Brooklyn’s learned that if the list of things to complete is too long, it’s difficult to finish. “Concentrate on what’s important to making the game fun, stick to those elements, and be original.”

Check out an article on Brooklyn’s win in the news:

• Federal Way Mirror | Federal Way Middle Schooler Wins Prize for Video Game Design

Thariq Ridha and Umair Zaidi

When Thariq Ridha, 14, learned about the National STEM Video Game Challenge from his parents, he was quick to confer with his friend Umair Zaidi, 16, about developing a game for the competition. Together, the Beaverton, Oregon-based duo developed B.L.O.B. (short for Big Lump of Blobs), a video game that won them the 2015 Team High School Open Platform award. B.L.O.B. players navigate the game as an ever-growing blob character—avoiding spikes, altering gravity, and completing each level by reaching a checkered tile. “I figured that short, concise levels with puzzle and reflex features would be fun for players and keep them attracted to the game,” explains Thariq. “Bright, contrasting colors and playful elements were added to create a positive and child-like environment.”

When he’s not designing games, Thariq enjoys playing soccer, yo-yoing and hanging out with friends. His favorite subject in school is computer science because of its relevance and malleability. “It allows me to create whatever I want in the digital world,” Thariq explains. After graduating, he hopes to pursue computer science further, building on his passion for game and app development, web design, and graphic design. From the STEM Challenge, he learned how important effective collaboration and teamwork are in the real world, particularly when it comes to making video games.

His teammate Umair draws much of his inspiration from his friends. “They are all amazing programmers, and sometimes—almost all of the time— I wish I had their abilities,” he explains. His favorite class is literature and composition. “Although the easiest would have to be AP calculus,” says Umair. After high school, he aspires to become a game designer and programmer.

The pair’s advice for aspiring designers is twofold: Brainstorm constantly and don’t wait to start developing. “Coming up with an idea for a game isn’t just something that happens,” says Umair. “You have to always be thinking, even when you’re not actually making a game, about what elements would make for a cool game.” Then, once you’ve got the seed of an idea, roll up your sleeves and get started. “All successful people have something in common,” explains Thariq. “They got started.”

Having grown up as a gamer, Gabriel Rocero, 17, jumped at the chance to enroll in the video game program at his high school. “I’d always dreamed of making my own,” explains the Temple, Texas resident. When a teacher informed him about the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge, he decided to submit his game In Search of Purpose, a school assignment that quickly evolved into a personal passion. Gabriel’s game, which features a robot on a mission to discover the purpose of his life, exploring a temple and dodging angry souls along the way, won the High School Unity award.

Gabriel’s favorite games incorporate a variety of gameplay elements and a compelling storyline, and he strived to do the same with his own design. In his free time, he enjoys both music and literature, and his favorite classes—besides game design—are Spanish and band. After high school, he plans to pursue game design or architecture. One of his greatest inspirations is beloved developer Gabe Newell. “Not only is he a famous game designer who started independent,” says Gabriel, “but also the fanbase that surrounds him is always fun to interact with.”

He recommends new developers start small, and engage their friends in the development process. “Set a weekly or daily goal, and don’t forget to take breaks,” Gabriel suggests. “Working hard all the time, even on something you enjoy, is the quickest way to burn yourself out and get exhausted.” It’s easy to get caught up in a big project and neglect other responsibilities, he notes. “A balancing act must occur when doing something of this caliber.”

Jason Yip was a Research Fellow here at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center in 2013-14. He is currently a Senior Fellow here as well as an assistant professor at the University of Washington. We asked him to share some highlights from his time here, as well as what he is doing now.

Tell us a little bit about some of the activities you worked on while you were a Cooney Center Fellow.
Sure, some of the highlights of my time here at the Cooney Center were:

• Running around New York City with video equipment to capture the lives of Latino families and their use of technology and media for learning.
• Helping to organize major events, such as meetings for the Families and Media Project consortium and the Learning at Home report release.
• Trying my own Cooney Center Fellows project in which Vikki Katz, Carmen Gonzalez, and I studied how Latino youth search and broker online information for their English-language-learning parents.
• Writing a book chapter with Michael Levine, Ellen Wartella, and Alexia Lauricella on early childhood and digital technologies.

From L-R: Alan Nong, Rocio Almanza, Anna Ly, Briana Pressey, and Jason Yip
Photo by Lori Takeuchi

What was the best part of being at the Cooney Center?
My favorite part of being a Cooney Center Fellow was just taking time to learn about how to study families engaged in learning with technology. I had just finished a dissertation examining how children develop ownership in science learning in after school settings. I came to realized in my analysis that in order to fulfill the mission of connected learning, I needed to better understand the space of families and learning. At the Cooney Center, I felt I could spend an entire year thinking deeply about how my research in designing new technologies could connect together in the family space. It was truly an opportunity to reflect and converse with many experts (academic, industry, non-profit) in the field of families, technologies, and learning.

Can you share a little bit about what you’ve been up to since your fellowship ended?
Since I have left, I have become an assistant professor of digital youth at the University of Washington. I just made it through my first official year here. From my Cooney Center experience, I’ve been able to craft and explore the following research question here: “How do families and children collaborate and participate together in learning, and what role does technology play in these interactions?” To answer this question, I’ve been working on my NSF Cyberlearning project, exploring how mobile social media and large public tangible displays help to connect STEM learning in neighborhoods across school, after school, and family settings. I’ve also started KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational design team composed of children (ages 7–11) and adult researchers focusing on co-designing new technologies and learning activities for children. KidsTeam UW has worked closely together with the Seattle Public Library to create new learning activities for families and technologies, develop a new game development tool (BlockStudio) that helps families engage in programming together without textual-code, and working with Foundry10 (a non-profit) to see how Super Mario Maker can be implemented into libraries to teach design thinking for families.

Tell us a little more about what you are working on as a Senior Fellow.
As I mentioned before, my fellowship project focused on studying how Latino children (ages 11–14) search, translate, and broker online information for their English language learning families. We did an exploratory study and interviewed 10 Latino children and had them engage in information search tasks to understand how they search and translate online information and what skills they were learning. Vikki, Carmen, and I were able to publish our findings from this study in the International Conference of the Learning Sciences. As a Senior Fellow, I’ve been able to also take our exploratory research to present it to Google. Carmen and I were able to win a Google Faculty Research Award on this work, in which we will be able to present findings that will help Google build better search capabilities for English language learners and lower literacy populations. We’ll be exploring deeper this search-and-brokering phenomenon with about 30 Latino English-language-learning families, and going into their homes to conduct interviews and search tasks. Carmen and I are both really interested in seeing how mobile technology plays a part in this search, what aspects of health information are families accessing, and how differences occur in age, gender, and birth order. We’re hoping to present our work to show the kinds of struggles English-language-learning families and children face in searching for online information, the important skill sets children use, and what kinds of important learning occurs when children and families search the Internet together.

What role would you say the fellowship has played in your professional trajectory?
The fellowship made a huge impact on my professional trajectory. Before I came to the Cooney Center, it was pretty difficult to say what exactly my research trajectory was. I did a number of Internet search studies, wrote a lot of papers on co-designing new technologies with children, and examining STEM learning and identity develop in informal settings. Being at the Cooney Center helped me to see that all the past research I was doing could be applied to families, technologies, and learning. In particular, working with Lori, Vikki, and Carmen helped me understand the need to understanding Latino families, particularly as this group becomes more integrated with technology. With the Internet search studies, I’ve been able to learn more about how English-language-learning families search the Internet together. With co-design, we are focusing more on how families co-design together. More recently, I just got a paper published at SIGCHI, examining how families play a role in co-design. Finally, it was at the Cooney Center that I wrote up the NSF Cyberlearning grant about how we needed to study neighborhood science learning through the lens of family participation. So yes, I would say the Joan Ganz Cooney Center has been hugely influential on my research path.

What tips would you share with a prospective applicant about the Cooney Center Fellowship?
I would say this is the best fellowship out there when it comes to family learning, technology, and new media. In your applications, focus on how a Cooney Center fellowship could direct your research path into this area. Also, be willing to share your idea for your fellows project and be serious about finding a way to complete it realistically within a one-year framework.

The deadline to apply for the 2016-17 fellowship is April 4, 2016.

Flickr / Anna Thornton

Back in January, I joined the Joan Ganz Cooney Center as a Senior Fellow. It is a perfect fit. I’ve been a fan of the Center’s work for a while, writing regularly about its research reports for my Forbes Blog. Many of the folks at the center have also been fans of my work—in particular, the Mindshift Guide to Digital Games and Learning that I created in partnership with the Cooney Center back in 2013-14.

I wrote that guide to try and persuade teachers and parents to consider incorporating video games into schools. At the time, there was still a pervasive stigma left over from the industry’s early years. Digital gaming was mostly viewed as a superficial leisure activity or a waste of time; it rotted the brain. Video games were damaging distractions, immoral temptations, the ultimate bad influences.

Ironically, many of the teachers I aimed to persuade were actually playing casual games on their own smart phones or tablets regularly—Angry Birds, Words with Friends, Candy Crush; Pew reported in 2008 that more than half of adults in the United States played video games. The problem was that the residual voices of early game controversies still loomed large. Games came with a lot of baggage.

Did you know that in the 1980s Parent-Teacher Associations pushed for legislation that would forbid arcades to open too close to schools? And the video game console’s mechanical ancestor, the pinball machine, had been banned citywide in 1942 by New York’s Mayor Fiorella LeGuardia. Decades later, encouraging people to embrace learning through digital play often felt like an impossible uphill battle against history.

In a way, I was trying rebrand an activity that had the worst possible reputation. Most parents and teachers saw games as the great antagonist—an evil villain. They thought games kept kids from reading, writing, and playing outside. And now that the entire arcade had been smooshed down into a pocket-sized device that kids could carry anywhere, some folks even began to worry that the digital-world would destroy everyday social interactions.

But I saw something remarkable when I watched my own children absorbed into games like Minecraft. In these virtual environments, my kids seemed to be playing the same sort of role-playing and make-believe games that my friends and I played in our youth. In Center City Philadelphia, I remember how back alleys and empty lots were transformed into space stations, medieval castles and secret spy lairs. We all learned to cooperate creatively as we were forced to navigate the social dynamics among headstrong friends.

Nowadays, in a world where children can’t wander along urban sidewalks the way we did, it’s encouraging to see that they still find a space in which to practice social interactions through imaginative play. Immersed in Minecraft’s blockworld and connected to their friends by Skype, my kids live out epic adventures. They participate in every day rites of passage like the ones dramatized in classic movies like Stand By Me and books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

It turns out the game-world is not the site of passive consumption and moral temptation that the curmudgeons describe. Instead, it is playful, experiential, and creative; it features all the ingredients that decades of educational research tell us make for quality learning. And that’s why I’ve spent years encouraging adults to see the digital world not as an alternative space into which kids escape, but rather as a primary location in which children require the guidance and mentorship that teachers and parents can provide.

Nowadays, the video game stigma has dissipated. White House Education Game Jams are a regular occurrence; and there’s no longer a question about whether or not digital games belong in the classroom. The adoption of video games for learning, at this point, seems inevitable. Thus, I’ve shifted my focus: from promoting game-based learning, to influencing the way in which playful digital media for learning is designed and implemented for long-term use.

I believe there is an enormous opportunity immediately in front of us. Schools are ready to change. A true digital overhaul of classroom technology is just around the corner and we can ride it, incognito like a Trojan Horse, if we just ask the right questions. How do we make sure that it is not just an infrastructural transition, but also a pedagogical transition? How do we leverage the flexibility that comes in times of transition to make sure that not only do the technologies of learning change, but also the non-technological practices and values? How do we ensure that new tools are actually used to improve education practices—to fill real social, emotional, cultural and cognitive gaps—rather than just to sustain more of the same practices in ever more profitable and efficient ways?

We need to leverage video games and new digital technologies to shift the educational landscape in the United States. But we also need to expand our perspective beyond national borders. It is unfortunate that education in the U.S. remains fiercely localized. Even efforts to create national standards (like the Common Core) have been met with resistance at the state level. Many folks just don’t seem to understand that we cannot prepare children for global economy from within a regional educational paradigm. At a time when the borders that grew out of 19^th Century nationalism and held fast during the industrial progress of the 20^th Century can no longer function in impermeable ways, our schools remain regrettably bogged down in epistemological constructs that reinforce division, rather than global comradery. This is a gross failure. Whether we understand education to be about cultivating a skilled labor force or a fulfilled citizenry, we must acknowledge that the social, political, and economic world for which students are preparing is now a global one.

As a Senior Fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, I’ll be looking in detail at the way digital learning games and new interactive information technologies can be implemented so as to promote equality, inclusivity, identity, tolerance, and global citizenship. Games in and of themselves are not the point. They could easily become just as boring and ineffective as standardized tests (I’ve done game-based hazmat trainings; they were not fun). The important thing is that we figure out how to embrace the scalability of digital technologies in order to enable creative, exploratory, and playful learning across socio-economic lines, across traditional subject divisions, across geo-political borders, and in intergenerational multiplayer modes.

When 15-year-old Thomas Cannon began to feel limited by the customization options available while playing his favorite video games, his solution was simple: He would learn to program and build his own characters and stories. The San Jose, California-based student first heard about the National STEM Video Game Challenge when he was in fifth grade, and created a gamed called Dr. Duckenheimer for the competition. When he didn’t win with his first submission, Thomas continued to hone his skills and produced Peg Leg Patrick’s Buoyancy Adventure, which won the High School Open Platform award in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge. The game is based on Archimedes’ principle, and explores how buoyancy can be manipulated through activities in shipbuilding.

An avid musician, Thomas enjoys playing music on his guitar and trombone, and his favorite subject in school is band. He draws much of his inspiration from his parents: Thomas’s dad is an engineer at NASA and his mom is a sculptor. “I’m also inspired by programmers like John Carmack and Ken Silverman,” he explains. The California native plans to study computer science after high school.

Having built Peg Leg Patrick’s Buoyancy Adventure modularly, Thomas recommends a similar approach to aspiring designers to ensure quick development. To take a new game to the next level, he also recommends prioritizing the visuals and branding. “Good looking art is the most important aspect in designing a video game,” Thomas explains.

Back in 2009, an interest in animation led Litchfield, Ohio native Zack Harmon, 17, to start experimenting with interactive design in GameMaker. Over six years later, his passion for programming has evolved into a self-proclaimed addiction—and resulted in an award-winning video game. Zack’s game, Gongbat, features an ancient creature that battles evil by harnessing the power of sound, and took home the High School Gamemaker award in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge. “The entire game was created over 10 months,” says Zack, “in and outside of study halls and taking up 90% of my free time last summer.”

Inspiration for Zack’s game stems from a love of arcade classics like Super Mario and Galaga and a penchant for science fiction films like Star Wars, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Back to the Future. As a dedicated artist, Zack enjoys a variety of creative activities, including playing guitar and drums, composing music, painting and drawing, and experimenting with sculpting and paper mache. He also enjoys coding websites, taking photos, and spending time outdoors.

An image Zack submitted in his application illustrates the details of Gongbat’s promotional materials.

Zack plans to study game design or graphic design in college, and aspires to launch his own design business when he’s older. “I would love to front a small team developing quirky, innovative games that make it big,” he explains. Zack discovered the STEM Challenge on the last day of registration, and worked quickly to put the finish touches on his labor of love.

“The most valuable lesson I learned is simply to have fun designing,” says Zack. “With the hundreds of other projects I’ve worked on, I had so many ideas at the beginning that there was never enough time to implement them,” he explains. Gongbat was different because most of the game’s features were created on the fly, relying on rapid prototyping. While certain items or features were ultimately cut from the final game, Zack relished the fast-paced creation process. “Now thousands of people are enjoying playing my game; it’s the biggest payoff ever,” says the teenager, who plans to create a sequel to Gongbat featuring a time-altering gong in the future.

Check out recent features on Matthew’s win in the news:

• The Post | Buckeye grad receives national recognition for video game creation

At 13 years old, Ethan Pang’s path to programming was surprisingly simple—he enjoyed playing video games, became interested in writing code, and decided to combine the two by creating a game of his own. After watching a handful of videos made by a programming professor on YouTube, Ethan began developing his own games. When his mom suggested entering the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge, Ethan used GameSalad to program a side-scrolling puzzle game called Science Survivor, which won him the Middle School Open Platform award. “I thought of adding the learning element to the game so that players could have fun and learn science while playing the game,” says Ethan, whose game includes a series of obstacles that can only be overcome by correctly answering a series of science questions.

Based in San Jose, California, Ethan’s favorite subject in school is math, and he enjoys reading and playing video games in his free time. His go-to games are RPGs—role-playing video games—because he enjoys taking control of the events in the game, starting new quests, and having ample room to explore virtual worlds.

“The people who inspire me most are those have have innovative and daring ideas that have led them to success,” says Ethan. He plans to study computer science in college and become a computer programmer. “[And] maybe a video game designer when I become older,” he explains.

The most valuable lesson he’s learned from creating Science Survivor was commitment and perseverance. “I dedicated many hours of work and energy to creating my game,” says Ethan, “I would advise aspiring designers not to give up.” When problems arise, keep trying until they are fixed, and remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you need it, he suggests. He also recommends new programmers think creatively to generate unique ideas that will set their projects apart.

You can play Ethan’s game, Science Survivor, here:

Instructions: Reach the end of the maze by getting past the obstacles and enemies. Get past obstacles by correctly answering the questions. You begin with five health and you lose one for every incorrect answer and when you touch an enemy. Move left/right with the A/D keys. Use SPACE to jump and double jump. Jump on enemies to defeat them. Pick up health kits to gain back one health.

John Ripple and John Korhel

John Ripple, 14, and John Korhel, 14, share a common love of math and video games. Building on their mutual interests, the Parker, Colorado-based friends produced The Cube’s Journey, a platform game that follows an artificially intelligent cube’s journey to freedom—battling enemies, avoiding traps, and collecting gold bars along the way. Together, they won the Team Middle School Open Platform award in the 2015 National STEM Video Game Challenge.

John Ripple’s initial inspiration for learning to program came from seeing his brother develop his own video game. When John Korhel heard about the STEM Challenge through their school’s librarian, the boys decided to team up and try their hand at building a game of their own based on the game Portal.

When he’s not gaming, John Korhel enjoys longboarding and web design. One of his biggest inspirations is Jason Silva, host of National Geographic’s Brain Games, a show that explores the secrets of the human mind. After high school, John Korhel hopes to study computer science.

John Ripple enjoys reading, hiking, investigating new topics on YouTube, and walking his dog in his free time. After high school, he plans to pursue his interest in STEM.

From the experience, John Ripple learned two important lessons. “I learned GameMaker, and that perseverance and determination pay off in the end,” he says. “If you get stuck on any type of problem, the Internet is a great resource.” John Korhel’s biggest takeaway was to plan effectively from the beginning. “Map out your ideas before you try to make them work,” he suggests. “You’ll see potential errors and ways to do thing more efficiently.”