Board games, card games and computer games are all fair game at the second annual Let’s Make the Rules: A Game Creation Experience, a design challenge open to 鶹ѡ students who have an idea for a new game.
The hands-on event takes place from 1-6 p.m. on Feb. 7, at the Design Innovation Hub on the Kent Campus, and aims to encourage an exchange between neurodiverse and neurotypical individuals.
What makes this event different from similar makerspace challenges is that it has been designed by neurodiverse individuals for neurodiverse individuals, with an open invitation for any 鶹ѡstudent from any campus to participate, Lisa R. Audet, Ph.D., assistant professor of speech pathology and audiology and director of the Neurodiversity Research Initiative, told 鶹ѡToday.
J.R. Campbell, executive director of Kent State’s Design Innovation Initiative, said this year’s event is scaled up from last year’s inaugural game challenge and will include a research component.
“We’re asking any willing students to be involved in focus group feedback sessions that help us to understand more about the effectiveness of this challenge-based experience so that we can get better at inclusively designing future social learning experiences for students,” Campbell said.
The event, sponsored by the 鶹ѡBrain Health Research Institute, the Neurodiversity Research Initiative and the Design Innovation Initiative, is planned to allow neurodiverse students and their allies to explore game development to share their strengths and insights while enhancing the understanding of neurodivergent student experiences and contributing to meaningful dialogue on campus.
“My goal, from a design innovation point, is to improve our approaches to designing experiences for inclusivity in such a manner that doesn’t require subsets of students to mask their true selves, but instead informs how we can best change the structures and systems for everyone to positively engage in challenge-based innovation experiences,” Campbell said. “By making it a game-design challenge, it gives us a way to translate and make more visible some of the challenges and experiences that neurodiverse students may have when they try to operate in and navigate the university.”
The first such event took place last April, during Autism Awareness Month. Campbell said this year’s event shifted to February to find a time when student life isn’t as hectic as it is toward the end of the spring semester.
Participants in last year’s event created a variety of card and interactive board games. The DI Hub provides the supplies needed to create the games. While computer games are also possible, the five-hour event window may not leave enough time for that work, Campbell noted.
One student, Campbell said, created a game based on his dreams. “His assertion was that there’s a confidence and intelligence that he experiences navigating his dreams that isn’t the same as what comes out when he’s trying to communicate in real life,” Campbell said, “So he was trying to create this sensation of how that works, where the control levels are.”
A highlight of the event is the end when participants learn to play the games each other created, he said.
Students who participate do not have to identify themselves as neurodiverse or neurotypical. Audet said a larger goal of the event is to highlight what the college experience is like for the neurodiverse and increase awareness.
“You know, we talk about the 鶹ѡfamily and that includes neurodiverse students. And one way to increase that engagement is to begin to challenge the neurotypical view of what it means to be neurodiverse,” she said.
The event is free and open to any student, with snacks and pizza provided. Space is limited, so those interested are encouraged to register soon.