Buzz!!! The Interactive Area and Perimeter Game for Ellen Lynch’s Kindergarten Class at the Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School


 

Buzz!!! is an interactive game designed to teach the students of Ellen Lynch's kindergarten class at the Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School the concepts of area and perimeter. Created by Jehan Aslam, Aron Holzman, Alex Kruglov, and Ben White while in the Educational Software Seminar at Brown University (CS92), the game is intended to promote a basic understanding of the concepts of area and perimeter in students who have not yet mastered the addition and multiplication of numbers.



Minimum System Requirements:

For successful execution, the program requires: 

·	A CD-ROM drive of 4X or greater.

·	Microsoft Windows 95/98/2000

·	At least 32 MB Ram

·	Monitor resolution set at 800x600 pixels

·	30 MB of hard drive space

Audio speakers or headphones are required for the game to be played effectively.


Buzz!!! was written specifically for a particular classroom at the Vartan Gregorian Fox Point Elementary School, in Providence; but the program may be useful in any kindergarten class, or in other settings for 5-9 year old children, when the goal is to learn the concepts of area and perimeter. The program can be downloaded at any time from the Buzz!!! program page at the CS92 web site: http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs092/2000/Kmath/.



Installation Instructions:

If installing the program from a compact disc, put the CD in the CD-ROM drive of your PC.  Click on the "My Computer" icon on the desktop and then click on the CD drive icon (often this is the D drive).  Once the CD is open, it will contain the following: 

·	Buzz!!!.exe (the executable file which contains the actual program) 

·	A shortcut to the program with a colorful fly icon

·	README files  

·	Authors’ Bios (at Mrs. Lynch’s request)

Copy all the files into a folder on your hard drive.  The program can be run by clicking on the Buzz!!!.exe shortcut. 


If downloading the program from the CS92 web site, you will choose a destination on your computer for the folder containing the Buzz!!!.exe and README files together. Once the downloading and decompression of that folder has occurred, the program can be run by simply clicking on Buzz!!!.exe shortcut.



Game Instructions:

The game begins with an Introduction screen in which the game's mascot, a colorful firefly called "Buzz!!!" welcomes the player into the exciting world of Area and Perimeter.  This is followed by a welcoming screen that prompts the player to enter his/her name into a gray box.  The player can then click the "Enter" (or Return) key, or press the Clear button if he/she makes a mistake typing the name.  The program will remember the player's name throughout the game. The game can also be played if no name is entered at the start (e.g. if the student cannot type well).


The player has the option to choose the Play button, in which case he/she will enter the program's "workspace", or go to the Help screen, which will take the player through examples of calculations of both area and perimeter.  Throughout the game, the player can hit the Quit button at any time to exit the game.  If the player chooses the Play option, he/she can always go back to the Help screens for clarification.


Once a player clicks the Play button (either from the original menu screen or from the Help tutorial), he/she will be taken to the workspace screen where the actual game playing can take place.  From that screen, there are a few things a player can do.  If he/she clicks the Shape button, a shape will be generated and the player will have to try to figure out its area and perimeter.  To do so, he/she can type the value for area and perimeter and hit the corresponding "Ok" button or the "Enter" key.  If the player correctly determines the area and perimeter, the workspace will be cleared for a new shape.  The shapes become more challenging as the player correctly finds the area and perimeter of the shapes.  


If the player needs help calculating the area or the perimeter, he/she can click on either "Area" or "Perimeter" text and the helpful fly will "light up" each successive square to help count the area or trace the outline of the shape to help calculate perimeter.


A player does not have to use the Shape button to make a shape.  On the right hand side of the workspace, there are 8 drops of different colors, above which is a square.  If a player clicks on one of the drops, the color of the square will change to the color of the drop.  The square can be dragged onto the workspace and placed in any of the allotted squares in the grid. Once the square is positioned in the workspace, it cannot be moved. A player can make any shape with any color combinations, and if the player makes a mistake, he/she can click on the eraser below the drops and click on any squares in the workspace that he/she wants to erase.  Once a drop is clicked again, however, the eraser behavior is no longer in effect. 


If the player hits the Clear button at any time while on the workspace, both the grid and the area and perimeter fields will clear (become blank).


Only contiguous shapes with no white space trapped inside will be accepted by the workspace.  If a player makes a shape that isn't a shape in this sense, the program will prompt the player to change the shape.  Once an acceptable shape is made, the player plays the game the same way he/she would if the Shape button were clicked: by entering values into the area and perimeter fields (note that the since the workspace consists of 30 squares (a 6x5 grid), so 30 is the maximum possible area.


A player can stop the game at any time by pressing Quit, or can go to the tutorial by pressing Help.  The Menu button takes the player back to the original welcome screen.

