Three Words
- Extinction Party is an educational puzzle game.
Sentence
- It explores the history of life on earth by looking in at the five major mass extinction events.
Description
- Extinction Party is an educational puzzle game that explores the history of life on Earth by looking at the five periods when over 70% of species went extinct in a relatively short amount of time.
- The story of each mass extinction event will be told in two parts
o Section one will be on the outside of the puzzle, and will invite users to manipulate physical objects, emulating a scientist trying to figure out when an extinction event happened, and why.
§ For this part of the installation, I’ve invited users to act like a detective discovering unusually high levels of the element iridium at a certain level in the rock strata.
§ After that, they’ll be prompted to look for fossils on either side of the boundary that they’ve just discovered. The fact that these two fossils look so different from each other help to tell us that an extinction event occurred.
o Section two will take participants back in time. The puzzle will open up, and players will see what life looked like before and after the extinction event on a video screen.
o Upon completion of the game, participants will be given a QR code, which will lead them to a web page containing more detailed information on what we know about the extinction
Plan for installation
- It will take the form of a 3-foot high standing pentagon shape,
o And each side of the pentagon containing fun ways for participants to explore what life looked like before and after the extinction, and how why scientists think it happened in a certain way.
o Ideally, this would be part of a larger exhibit about life on Earth
o Of course, most museums aren’t open right now, so I’m considering making an online version of this project.
Maintenance
- Make breakable materials as cheaply as possible. The “digging tool” could be as simple as a piece of cutout foam with a magnet embedded inside.
- Keep the digging tool tethered to the device.
- Have an experienced technician on hand to maintain PComp Elements.
- For the online version, be receptive to ongoing feedback and make changes as necessary.