Deep dive to our season 2 “Eco Hero” voyage
:Connecting an Online Chess Game to the Environment
How do we plan to help out
A couple months ago, the Eco Hero team started to brainstorm ideas on how we could solve current issues that revolved around the environment. What we had in mind was a game that was easily accessible and not too different so that no one would know how to play. We spent a few weeks deciding what we should create and how it should be done. The main goal was to raise awareness of global warming and pollution (the main problems we wanted to help solve). When we decided to make a chess game about the environment, we began to brainstorm about how we could connect the game to the current problems.
At first, our idea included having pop-up facts about the environment appear on the sides or having the chess pieces appear as endangered animals. However, we needed more ideas on top of the ones we originally thought of. Before we started the Eco Hero Project, we drafted up a plan on how the game and website should be made. We agreed that before releasing a completed version of the game, we would build a community first to interact and receive ideas. Jarron, one of our members, created a Google Form that asked others on what they think would be a good idea to add to our game. From this form we got many great ideas such as having the enemy pieces appear as garbage or something that you need to clean. Another idea included having the chessboard appear as the Earth because pollution and global warming were issues that affected the entire world.
Another source of ideas was our advisor, Ms Liz Taylor. Many weeks into our project, we gave a presentation to a potential advisor for our project. Ms Taylor gave us many great ideas along with educating us more about how the environment was being damaged. One idea that we received from Ms Taylor was to localize the issue. We realized that people would be more willing to help make a change if the issue affected them more directly.
We decided to do this by using the user’s IP address to change the layout of the map depending on their location. There would also be a change of facts and questions to make the player know what was going on in their region. This would most likely increase the chances of the person taking action or considering doing so. All of the ideas that we received were stored on a document and would be taken into consideration when the time comes to start environment integration.
Integrating our game with the environment is a very important part of this project. After all, it is our main focus to raise awareness.
~ Team EcoHero(Members:Alvin Kang, Jarron Lei, Dohyun Yang & Mentored by two ACF tech coaches Grant Cheng and Nathan Lee)