About two weeks ago, myself and the rest of JAVAK finished and gave the final copy of our Proof of Concept game to Makeosity. Well... not exactly. Like any game created in a short time span (four weeks), it had bugs. Quite a few of them. Not the major bugs that would make the game unplayable, but the ones that would lurk in the corner and only appear when you did a couple things a certain way, for example entering the transition elevator, and pressing E as it went up to Level 3. I spent the weekend working with the team on playing through the game multiple times, trying to fix all of the bugs, and we finally were able to build a finished (hopefully completely bug-free) standalone for Dr. Kaun and Makeosity. She has been busy doing other work and has not gotten a chance to try it out on her own laptop, though we did do a run through with her on Friday to show her the new features.
With that said, the JAVAK Makeosity ELE (Experimental Learning Environment) project is not over. Though we are now turning our attention to what really started JAVAK, the music app from AtomHacks, and a project we all really want to pursue, we may be returning to the ELE project in the near future. Our goal when we started was to make a proof of concept for a game that could teach CAD, and in the process gain real life experience and learn much more about the fields that interest us. And it was a journey with quite a few potholes, quite a few obstacles, but still unbelievably fun. In the end, we did exactly what we set out to do, but it is still just a proof of concept. It needs work to make it into a full on polished game that could teach kids CAD and even more than that. Dr Kaun and Makeosity had a great image for the game, and we hope that they will be able to achieve it. Though Kiana and Ashley will soon head off to college, and Violet, Jenny and I are about to begin our last year at Bronx Science (with all the college apps and school stress that comes with it), the option to continue working on it is still in the back of our minds. We haven't decided on where JAVAK is going yet, how far we want to take it, and whether we want to continue in the future. We'll just have to see where this journey takes us.
With that said, Autodesk has recently released a new Game Engine, Stingray (check it out , which throws a bit of a curveball at us. We developed the game in Unity, since it was a software I had used extensively before, and some of the other members had heard of or interacted with, but the game was built with Autodesk help and targeting Autodesk CAD software. Therefore porting it over to Autodesk's new Game Engine, Stingray, would be incredibly convenient. The team and I are going to check it out when it gets released for students on the 19th, and we will keep you all updated.
Finally, one of Dr Kaun's goals is to increase the spread of these tools, and this game, and one of our goals, as students of FIRST Robotics, is to spread STEM. With that in mind, I would love to attach a WebPlayer version of the game to this blog, but due to the way Unity saves and loads the game (and trust me, if you play it, you will want to save the game), that's not possible. However, I can share the Standalone with you, so here is a link to a zip file with the entire game. For windows users, just run the .exe. There is a Mac version, but since I don't have a Mac, I am unable to test it. Click here for the download link and enjoy!
With that said, the JAVAK Makeosity ELE (Experimental Learning Environment) project is not over. Though we are now turning our attention to what really started JAVAK, the music app from AtomHacks, and a project we all really want to pursue, we may be returning to the ELE project in the near future. Our goal when we started was to make a proof of concept for a game that could teach CAD, and in the process gain real life experience and learn much more about the fields that interest us. And it was a journey with quite a few potholes, quite a few obstacles, but still unbelievably fun. In the end, we did exactly what we set out to do, but it is still just a proof of concept. It needs work to make it into a full on polished game that could teach kids CAD and even more than that. Dr Kaun and Makeosity had a great image for the game, and we hope that they will be able to achieve it. Though Kiana and Ashley will soon head off to college, and Violet, Jenny and I are about to begin our last year at Bronx Science (with all the college apps and school stress that comes with it), the option to continue working on it is still in the back of our minds. We haven't decided on where JAVAK is going yet, how far we want to take it, and whether we want to continue in the future. We'll just have to see where this journey takes us.
With that said, Autodesk has recently released a new Game Engine, Stingray (check it out , which throws a bit of a curveball at us. We developed the game in Unity, since it was a software I had used extensively before, and some of the other members had heard of or interacted with, but the game was built with Autodesk help and targeting Autodesk CAD software. Therefore porting it over to Autodesk's new Game Engine, Stingray, would be incredibly convenient. The team and I are going to check it out when it gets released for students on the 19th, and we will keep you all updated.
Finally, one of Dr Kaun's goals is to increase the spread of these tools, and this game, and one of our goals, as students of FIRST Robotics, is to spread STEM. With that in mind, I would love to attach a WebPlayer version of the game to this blog, but due to the way Unity saves and loads the game (and trust me, if you play it, you will want to save the game), that's not possible. However, I can share the Standalone with you, so here is a link to a zip file with the entire game. For windows users, just run the .exe. There is a Mac version, but since I don't have a Mac, I am unable to test it. Click here for the download link and enjoy!
Lastly, thank you all for your support, it has been a lot of fun!
-- Arun, an A of JAVAK
-- Arun, an A of JAVAK