Tri State Area

I’m in the process of developing a game that focuses on developing a virtual community and simulating a real-world economy. Players serve as community leaders, planning, managing resources and facing economic challenges. Goals include improving community happiness and learning economic principles. Tasks involve infrastructure planning, cooperation and economic policy development. Aimed at high school students, college students, and adults interested in economics, the game provides entertainment and education.

Learning objectives emphasize understanding and applying economic principles. The game introduces various resources such as funds, manpower, and land to contribute to community development. The user interface includes interactive maps, task cards, time periods, decision trees, and role-playing elements. Players visualize various aspects of the community, make decisions and experience the passage of time through events.

Role plays involve community planning and leadership, managing image, interacting with residents, and responding to events. Players can choose characters such as the Economist, unlocking new skills based on decisions and success. The game encourages collaboration, social interaction and virtual democratic decision-making.

During the quarter, I have been printing out sharks, I have printed out 2 new sharks which one I need to connect the head to the body still. It took around 15 hours to print all the sharks in total with one being really big and the printer stopping halfway through and then I had to print the head and a smaller one who came out just fine. There will probably be more tests including sharks in the near future as well.

This quarter I cut out a coaster from a plank of wood. I laser printed some art onto them, but I couldn’t figure out how to upload the picture. After that I coated it in oil so the water wouldn’t damage it.

Sofia Casalone

Basically, my goal with this project was to print out the digestive systems and make it colorful. For example, when people think of things being digested you think of food gettin grossly smashed together, so i thought i would picture the food nutrients being absorbed by the body in a much more pleasant way. i plan to draw vines representing the absorption and flowers representing areas the nutrients are absorbed to.

For my Makerspace project I am making a chess board. Im am not done with the board but what I have completed is getting the piece of wood I am going to use for the actual Board. I also have designed the board on Corel draw. Corel draw is a program on the computer where you can design whatever you want and later once you finished designing what you want to design you can cut it out on the CnC machine or the laser cutter.

Here are the pictures of my project so far

During this quarter of makerspace, I completed various mini projects. I reprinted tiles for Nina and Miya to decorate. For the font of these tiles, I did something different and used Sage’s own font design. I also completed putting two finished tiles onto the larger tile board. This process is fairly simple and involves taking another outline of a tile and gluing it to the back of the decorated tile. The tile backing has a hole cut out for a magnet so it can be stuck on the board. During the makerspace interim, I designed my own name tag using the laser cutter and attempted to make a map of Latin America. The map did not turn out according to plan, but I would like to try to re-do it.

During my time in maker space I designed two things. I first designed a coster out of wood from the laser cutter. I first went on computer that is connected to the laser cutter and designed the Penn State golf logo for a Christmas gift for my older sister. I then printed it and wrapped it up as a gift. I learned a lot from doing this project because I not only got to learn more about printing things on the computer and designing my own ideas. I also got to give back and make a gift that is useful. I than moved on too I different project which is still in the works. I wanted to design checker pieces to match with the chess board or a future checker board. I first took the circle wooden pieces and matched them by size, than Began to paint with yellow, blue, and pink on both sides. I than let them dry and will continue to finish the project over the next quarter. I will put photos of my progress in my next post. – Alex Nienhaus

I made 4 coasters using the laser cutter. First I got the pictures I wanted to pit on the coasters and then centered them in the circle. After printing them I made them water resistant and let them dry over the weekend.

I and a few other people have been working on setting up a fish tank for the Makerspace. So far, we have done a lot of research and created a list of materials that need to be bought in order for us to set up the tank.