Category Archives: Cooney Center Prizes

An adventure game where your character moves around by manipulating the attractive and repulsive forces of the atom. A 3D battle against pathogens inside the human body. An early learning game starring a shark that teaches first graders about inequalities. They could be the latest releases from a premiere educational game studio, but these and 14 other incredible games were all made by students between the ages of 10 and 18: the winners of the 2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge Youth Prize. On Monday, May…

The developer’s prize for the first National STEM Video Game Challenge went to Filament Games, headed by Dan White and Dan Norton, for You Make Me Sick, a game in which students design a bacteria or virus and attempt to infect a target host. Creative Director Dan Norton writes in with an update and shares some tips for aspiring game designers interested in entering this year’s National STEM Video Game Challenge.   Hi everyone! I’m Dan Norton, Creative Director at…

We’re always happy to spread the word for our Cooney Center Prize finalists — especially when they have exciting new projects and updates to share. This week, Andy Russell and Thushan Amarasiriwardena of Launchpad Toys have partnered with Wired’s GeekDad to announce a fun new contest: Kids and their parents are invited to share ‘toons they create about their summer travel adventures for a chance to win a LEGO space shuttle or a $100 Amazon gift certificate. (Check out the…

It’s hard to believe that the National STEM Video Game Challenge has come to a close. The Cooney Center team has just returned from D.C., where we invited the six finalists of the Collegiate and Developer streams of the competition to the Quick-Pitch Competition on Tuesday, March 29. Each team had a total of 20 minutes to present their prototypes and answer questions before a panel of judges at the Pew Center for American Life.   We were thrilled to…

Last spring, my company Dreamkind won the first Cooney Center Prize for Breakthroughs in Literacy Learning. Thanks to the Cooney Center, Sesame Workshop and the Electric Company, there are lots of good things to report since we won the award. Most importantly, as a result of winning the contest, we were able to meet and collaborate with a bunch of really talented producers from The Electric Company. We proposed different ideas to them, exchanged concepts about developing educational gaming curricula…

Today we bring you the first in a series of STEM related blog posts — starting with last year’s Cooney Center Prize finalists for the Motion Math — Gabriel Adauto and Jacob Klein. Throughout the process of creating Motion Math, our bouncing star fraction game for the iPhone and iPad, we’ve greatly benefited from conversations with our primary users: kids. The game was just released, and you can buy it here. We were honored this past June to be a…

The first annual National STEM Video Game Challenge is now open for applications. This nationwide challenge invites game makers big and small to show their passion for playing and making video games. This competition aims to motivate children’s interests in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). The Developer Prize challenges experienced game developers to design mobile games, including games for the mobile Web, for young children (grades pre-K through 4) that teach key Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts…

iPhone Game Makes Math Physical — Tilt gameplay gives learners an intuitive sense of fractions Motion Math, the pioneer of movement based learning games, today announces the launch of their fractions game which will help students master mathematics. Fractions are a notoriously difficult area of math for many learners. One half, 1/2, .5, and 50 percent all refer to the same amount, but to many students learning fractions, theyʼre only equally bewildering. Research has shown both that fractions are crucial…

I was asked by the Cooney Center to share my thoughts about winning this year’s Prize for Breakthroughs in Literacy Learning: Innovate with The Electric Company. When I found out we won, I immediately called my wife and kids to let them know. I have four kids and the three oldest — Hannah (7), Isaac (5) and Josh (3) — are huge, I mean really huge, Electric Company fans. My youngest, Gabriella (1), is too young for TV, but I’m…

You can now peak into the inaugural Cooney Center Prizes Quick Pitches that were held at the E3 Expo in June! Here are the finalists from our Breakthroughs in Mobile Learning prize: Motion Math Toontastic Mobile Technology for Sustainable Literacy Watch the winning pitch given by team Project NOAH View all the quick pitches See the awards ceremony, presented by White House CTO, Aneesh Chopra Read information on our newest competition, the National STEM Video Game Challenge!