Download Robotics_Curriculum Ludwig AA

Curriculum for Ludwig Game
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Basis
This material has been developed taking into account the cognitive and psychosocial
features of youth within the range ages of 16-19 as suggested by the theory of life
span development (Baltes & Schaie, 2013).
Cognitively-wise youth within this age are on average capable of reasoning in terms
of symbolic terms and formal logic; possesses fluid intelligence, the ability to cope
with new problems and situations as well as the capacity to understand and
integrate rules into sense of self.
In psychosocial terms youth during this age continue developing their identity in
relation to adult world; develop and maintain social relationships, display an
increased assertiveness and lack of self-discipline. Their identity development is
mainly influenced by family and peer relationships, economic and political
circumstances.
1.2 Game usefulness for non-formal teaching
The format of Ludwig fulfils the core features of non-formal education: relevance to
the needs of disadvantaged groups; concern with specific categories of person
(youth); focus on clearly defined purposes (development of entrepreneurial mindset) and; flexibility in organization and methods. It might be translated into four
criteria: purpose, timing, content and delivery system.
Purpose
Ludwig can be easily adjusted to concrete and short-term
learning needs on a non-credential basis.
Timing
basis.
Ludwig can be customized to short cycle, recurrent, part-time
Content
Ludwig can be adjusted to the individual needs of youth.
Delivery system
Ludwig is in line with the community related, flexibility,
learner-centred characteristic of non-formal education.
Furthermore, cognitively Ludwig might enhance youth capacity to reason
symbolically, face and solve problems successfully and incrementally. From a
psychosocial angle it might encourage the learning of physics in a playful way,
nurtures the building of self-discipline smoothly and identity as positive changeagent.
Entrepreneurially speaking, playing Ludwig under the guidance of a qualified
entrepreneurship facilitator might allow the integrated development of three
entrepreneurial skills: opportunity recognition, self-efficacy, and action. The
remaining skills of networking is less fostered by this game.
Entrepreneurial mind-set
Specific state of mind, which orientates human
conduct towards entrepreneurial activities and outcomes. Individuals with
entrepreneurial mind-sets are often drawn to opportunities, innovation and new
value creation (Fayolle, Liñán, & Moriano, 2014).
Opportunity Recognition
Perception of new opportunities for the creation of
value and construct a market around those opportunities (Santos & Eisenhardt,
2005).
Self-efficacy
Concerns the extent to which an individual
believes in his or her capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources and
causes of action needed to meet given situational demands. These beliefs influence
“what challenges to undertake, how much effort to expend the endeavour (and) how
long to persevere in the face of difficulties” (Bandura, 1986).
Action
Behaviour in response to a judgmental decision
under uncertainty about a possible opportunity for profit (McMullen & Shepherd,
2006).
Networking
Collaborative formal or informal relationship
between the individual entrepreneur and his social, business and/or institutional
contacts is created (Pérez Centeno, 2014).
1.3 Learning Link between Ludwig and Entrepreneurship
The curriculum has been developed in a way that the four sections of Ludwig are
matched with the four entrepreneurial skills highlighted in section 1.2. For instance,
in the presented curricula, the lesson focuses on the component of “water power”.
At first sight, it’s physics learning approach may have no have connection to
entrepreneurship, but when looking deeper into the skills fostered by the game:
opportunity discovery (exploration), evaluation and exploitation (Davidsson, 2007)
there is a positive match in terms of the enhanced competences both in the game as
well as in the arena of entrepreneurship. In this light, the challenge of this curricula
is to make these competences visible to participants and show them how they can
enhance entrepreneurial performance. The challenge to the instructor lies in the
method used to make this knowledge accessible to participants.
1.4 About LUDWIG
Ludwig is a small research robot who is on an important mission to find new forms
of energy for the home planet of the Robotronics. After a long journey he finally
reaches earth just to find it abandoned. Humans exhausted nearly all energy sources
and left the planet, now they live in big space stations.
Regretfully, Ludwig hits one of these space stations and crashes down on earth.
Now he faces a challenging situation: a damaged spaceship, a faraway home planet
in desperate need of energy know-how and 1 billion humans in a damaged space
station.
Ludwig has to learn about the human technologies on earth. Starting with the most
basic form of energy production “combustion” he has to advance through a tech tree
to find and learn about more sophisticated forms of renewable energy.
Ludwig doesn´t know anything about the laws of physics on earth, so he uses his
scanner to find and analyse physical phenomena which appear in the game. All the
knowledge is stored in a dynamical concept map - the knowledgebase.
The knowledgebase is empty at the start of the game. While playing, it fills step by
step with new nodes. The player ends up with a huge concept map of physical
knowledge on renewable energies.
The game features 4 “theme worlds”:, which are connected by the storyline.
Every theme world features a minigame - called laboratory. A laboratory illustrates
the core knowledge of the theme world. For example: How does a pumped storage
power station work? or Where should windmills be placed to get the most efficient
energy output?.
 Web site http://www.playludwig.com/en
 Available languages: English, German, Portugues and Chinese
 Registration is required: http://www.playludwig.com/en/support/#/userregister
 Demo version is free: http://www.playludwig.com/en/#/downloadrequirements
 Full version requires a license key which can be activated after demo version has
been installed.
2 CURRICULA
The implementation of the activity is structured in phases. Each phase includes the
required instructions for the facilitator.
2.1 Preparation
Preferably one week before the lessons, the instructor prepares to get familiar with
Ludwig. The preparation entails two steps.
Step 1:
Instructor register and install Ludwig then play it to gain a basic
overall understanding on the major features of the game.
Timing
90 minutes
Step 2:
Instructor undertakes a customized playing of Ludwig. Ludwig has
four ‘so called’ chapters: combustion, water power, wind energy and solar energy.
For this particular case, the instructor plays the ‘water power’ chapter. There is not
specific timing for this step, since it depends on instructor’s skills to gain a
comprehensive understanding of the selected chapter.
Timing
90 minutes
Total time
180 minutes
2.2 Game introduction
The instructor introduces the game rules to youth participants and runs an assisted
practice. The objective is to familiarize youth participants with the game and make
sure all participants have understood the objective of the game as well as how to
play it. The suggested timing for this phase is as follows:
Introduction to Ludwig
Rules
Assisted practice
Wrap-up
10 minutes
10 minutes
30 minutes
20 minutes
During the wrap-up the instructor explains participants the link between the
features of Ludwig with the development of entrepreneurial skills, clearly defining
and specifying the skills that might be particularly enhanced by the game, these
skills are indicated in section 1.2.
Total time
70 minutes
2.3 Description
Title
Age
Skills enhanced
Method
Objectives
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



Survival
15+1
Self-efficacy, opportunity recognition, networking and action
group work, role play & scenarios
Solve problems from a different and unexpected perspective under time pressure
Frame problems as “hidden opportunities”.
Engineer creative solutions
Develop goal-driven action
Learn to work on a team basis
2.4 Materials needed




Access to full version of Ludwig
Any video-recording device: camcorder or phone enabled with a video camera
6 litres of tap water
20 bread units
Ludwig has been designed to be played by children from 11 years up. This
particular curricula focuses on children from 15 years up.
1

Ideally 100 coin units, preferably of a nominal value of one. These might be
replaced by set of monopoly money which can be purchased in e-bay. Notes
might be made from sheets of white paper and assign to them value of 1.
2.5 Implementation
Phase I
Intro
Timing
10 minutes’ intro + 30 minutes free playing Ludwig + 10
minutes’ task explanation



Instructor briefly introduces to participants the water section of the game.
Participants freely play the water section of Ludwig assisted by instructor, the
only instruction at this point is to have fun with it and advance on the game as
much as they can.
Once the playing is completed, the instructor collects the results obtained by each
participant and proceeds to explain the task.
Task
 Participants` lives are in danger, they need both water and food to assure their
survival, but they do not have enough of it. Their task consists of finding and
getting as much water and food as they can. The maximum amount of resources
to be found is: 6 litres of water and 20 bread units.
 The minimum amount of water and food to assure team survival is 2 litres of
water and 6 bread units.
 The team that gathers the highest amount of water and food and the highest
amount of coins wins the task.
 Participants are free to find any solution that allow them to achieve the task.
 Instructor clarifies questions concerning the task.
Total time
50 minutes
Phase II
Implementation
Timing
10 minutes’ group formation + 30 minutes per each scenario
(120 minutes in total). The four scenarios are as follows:
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
Scenario 4

a hint where water might be located but no coins
a hint where bread might be located but no coins
no hint but 100 coins
no hint, no coins
Instructor forms the groups and assign them a scenario as follows:
Group A
Group B
Group C
Scenario 1
Scenario 2
Scenario 3
Group D






Scenario 4
Participants start task implementation for 30 minutes
Instructor assign participants a new scenario and participants proceed with task
implementation for 25 minutes.
Instructor makes sure that all groups implement all scenarios for a duration of 25
minutes each.
Negotiations are video-taped.
The instructor assists the teams during this phase.
Instructor collects team results achieved in each of four scenarios.
Total time
130 minutes
Phase III
Reflective Feedback
Timing
10 minutes’ results + 20 minutes (5 minutes per group
presentation) + 2 minutes per each participant (depend of number of participants) +
20 minutes’ feedback
Instructor presents the results achieved by each team in each of the scenarios played.
Participants choose a member of their group to present their reflections based on
these questions:
What has been learned from this lesson?
What obstacles were faced during negotiations?
Which scenario was the most challenging?
What could be done better next time?
How this experience might be applied to real life?
Participants share individually their experiences on the task
Instructor wraps-up the session linking the task to the entrepreneurial skills put in
practice.
Total time
Around 90 minutes
2.6 Reinforcement


The display a video clip portraying the story of success of Jack Maa and Alibaba.
Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8gFSntSwr0
Instructor close the task by getting from each participants three things that they
have learned from the lesson.
Total time
30 minutes
2.7 References
Baltes, P. B., & Schaie, K. W. (2013). Life-span developmental psychology: Personality and
socialization: Elsevier.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory:
Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Davidsson, P. (2007). Method challenges and opportunities in the psychological
study of entrepreneurship. In B. J. Robert, M. Frese, & R. Baron (Eds.), The
Psychology of Entrepreneurship (pp. 287-323). London: Lawrence Earlbaum
Associates Publishers.
Fayolle, A., Liñán, F., & Moriano, J. A. (2014). Beyond entrepreneurial intentions:
values and motivations in entrepreneurship. International Entrepreneurship and
Management Journal, 10(4), 679-689.
McMullen, J. S., & Shepherd, D. A. (2006). Entrepreneurial action and the role of
uncertainty in the theory of the entrepreneur. Academy of Management Review,
31, 132-152.
Pérez Centeno, V. c. (2014). Entrepreneurial networking of small businesses in LatinAmerica: the case of Villa el Salvador in Peru. Jyväskyla Studies in Business and
Economics, 145.
Santos, F. M., & Eisenhardt, K. M. (2005). Organizational boundaries and theories of
organization. Organization Science, 16(5), 491-508.