Leveling Up Classrooms: A tulip Buddy to raise awareness
My name is Nicolle Louiza, and as of this writing, I have just graduated from Saxion University of Applied Sciences as a Designer in the Creative Media and Game Technologies course. While I consider myself more of an all-rounder, my main expertise is in game design, narrative design and concepting. Next to my role as a designer, I am also a digital artist.
For my graduation project, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the Smart Cities research group. My mission? To design a product that harnessed the power of gamification to make sustainability topics both fun and understandable for elementary school children in the Netherlands. The project was part of a larger initiative, "Storytelling with Data," and aimed to use data visualization to communicate complex ideas in a more approachable way.
During the 5 months that I worked on this project, I did extensive research into gamification, sustainability in the household and data visualization. I conducted workshops and surveys with multiple target demographics and later conceived and designed a website with a mini game to test out my research findings and add onto my documentation for Smart Cities.
The concept was a website for elementary children which would contain different forms of learning materials to teach them about sustainability: Videos, games, articles, activities and more. Additionally, there would be resources to aid parents and guardians when teaching their children on these topics. To give an example of how this could look, I also created a mini game about household carbon emissions.
During my time at Smart Cities, I have learned a lot about myself and my work ethics. I had to work independently which required a lot of planning and management on my part. I aspire to be a project manager and maybe have my own company or freelance in the future. This was a great opportunity to test out what that would be like. I feel like it has put a lot of things in perspective for me on what I want to do and how I want to achieve those goals. Not to mention, I learned so much about sustainability myself which even encouraged me to start applying some more sustainable behaviors in my own household. My favorite part of the internship was getting to do so much field research and interact with the children, parents, and teachers. I have always enjoyed research, so this fitted right in with my interests.
On the other hand, I do wish that there were more working places. I spent most of my time working in other buildings, in the library or at home because I found it hard to concentrate in the office or it was already fully occupied. I feel like because of that, I missed the opportunity to bond with my colleagues or incorporate them more into the project as much as I should have.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Smart Cities and getting to know everyone there as well as witnessing the work from other students. Those monthly student presentations and lunches were some of my favorite moments. My colleagues were all genuinely friendly and welcoming. My supervisors showed much interest in my project, and we held weekly meetings to discuss my progress and for them to give feedback.
I recommend Smart Cities to any student who wants to do an individual project that focuses on serious games or gamification. I do think that you should also have an interest in research and documentation because you must be able to justify your decisions. Smart Cities focuses on a lot of large and serious topics, which if you are not interested in those, it might become boring or tedious. In my experience, you must also have a sense of responsibility to plan and structure your own project.
Smart Cities provides all the help that they can, but for the most part, it is up to you to reach out and do the work. This goes for both the research and the development. Smart Cities works with a lot of partners and has a lot of skilled people, but they are limited on how much guidance they can give you depending on how technical your project is. So, in short: if you have the mindset to take responsibility for your work, want to work with serious games/topics and conduct research, this is the place for you.
Nicolle Louiza
Student Creative Media and Game Technologies
Ready for a New Challenge?
Did this story spark your enthusiasm for Smart Cities as a dynamic learning environment? If so, we’d love to hear from you! As a research group, we’re always eager to meet new students and explore opportunities for completing your graduation project or internship with us. Interested? Simply send us a WhatsApp or stop by our office (G6.25). We look forward to connecting with you soon!
