Category Archives: STEM Challenge

On a bright sunny morning after a February snowstorm, kids and their parents were lined up outside the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in Manhattan. But they weren’t there solely to see the many museum treasures. They were there to attend a workshop to make video games that they will enter into the National STEM Video Game Challenge. The excitement was palpable as the kids funneled into a room outfitted with laptops. “Do you have an idea for a…

The Cooney Center and E-Line Media are preparing for the third year of the National STEM Video Game Challenge. This year’s competition is open to middle and high school youth, who are invited original game designs beginning in January 2013 for the opportunity to earn recognition and prizes for themselves, as well as monetary prizes for their schools. This year, we’ll also be offering opportunities for mentors to get involved through a new website featuring toolkits, resources and curriculum. Plus,…

Congratulations to Dan Caldwell, one of our 2011 National STEM Challenge Video Game winners. His app, Body Adventure with Captain Brainy-Pants! is now available in the iTunes App Store. The app includes six games that explore the systems of the human body and features original music composed by Dan himself   Body Adventure with Captain Brain-Pants is now available for iPad, Android, Kindle, and Nook. Watch the trailer below, and check out the game in the App Store.    

Hello everyone! My name is Marty Esterman and I am the Educator Grand Prize winner for the PBS Kids stream in this year’s STEM Video Game Challenge event for my entry, AdditionBlocks. I have been quite humbled by this whole experience-and I want to thank The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, PBS Kids, E-Line Media, and the AMD Foundation for all their support. I have met some really great people! I also want to thank my wife, Stacy, who has also been…

This year’s National STEM Video Game Challenge was a record-breaking event for the Cooney Center and our partners at E-Line Media. With more categories and subcategories than ever before, we counted more than 3,700 entries from middle and high school students and nearly 100 within the adult categories from all over the country. The student winners—28 from 11 states and the District of Columbia—were honored at the Celebration for Success at the Smithsonian American Art Museum last Monday. The youth winners will…

Still buzzing from the exciting events of the previous evening, many participants from the STEM Video Game Challenge‘s Celebration of Success attended The Atlantic’s second annual Technologies in Education Forum on May 22 in Washington, D.C.  The Forum continued a lively discussion around the role that games play in STEM learning, with editorial staff from The Atlantic asking probing (often skeptical) questions and speakers generally offering optimistic answers. A panel on “Framing the Role Games Will Play in Future Learning” addressed whether there is a danger that…

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…

There may only be 2 days left to enter the National STEM Video Game Challenge but the STEM never stops. The Museum of Mathematics is offering a cash prize of $25,000 through the inaugural Rosenthal Prize for Innovation in Math Teaching.  The Prize is designed to recognize and promote hands-on math teaching in the upper elementary and middle school classroom. To learn more, visit rosenthalprize.momath.org.

This post was originally published by Gamestar Mechanic Teacher Blog.  For full coverage of the National Stem Video Game Challenge, click here. Last week, I googled 2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge and read through 15 full pages of search results where people and organizations shared their excitement for this year’s STEM competition. I also experienced this excitement first hand in Norfolk, VA the first weekend in February as I participated in NSU’s TechFest by giving workshops on game design for…

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…