Local kids playtest Sembl

This week we hosted a group of 23 local students, aged 9 to 11, to playtest Sembl and share their experience with us. We’re still playing the paper-and-pens version, but this time each team used an iPad to create images of objects they wanted to place on the board. (They used the camera, but interestingly, two students reckon they’d have preferred to draw the objects rather than photograph them.)

When we introduced the group to the concept of relatedness, they quickly warmed to the challenge of identifying connections. First we showed them a cocoa tin used by Scott in Antarctica and an Aboriginal message stick – both cylindrical in shape. Next we contrasted a stuffed thylacine and a Welsh organ – organ/less, har har. By the time we showed them the third example, they were primed to figure out for themselves that a branding iron and a breastplate both label bodies:

At that point, we knew these kids were good to go! Rather than reusing the generic board we know works with older folks, I adapted the board to simplify play, and seeded it with content I knew would be relevant to this group – they’ve been studying explorers.

We split the group into two; each group played a one-hour game in four teams. Round 1 was non-competitive as usual; just find your thing. In Round 2 each team competed with one other for the place on the board; and in Round 3 all four teams competed for the same place.

A standout connection – which tipped the second game in favour of the team who came up with it – was between convict leg irons and the Welsh organ (yes – having first appeared in the sample connections when we were introducing students to the game, the organ reappeared within the game). The connection here? Both involve keys.

We learned much from this session and will learn more, I’m sure, once we consider the photographic and video documentation of the playtest and post-game feedback session. (Thanks George, Sandra and Diego!) For now, I’ll give the students the last word: below are a few of the comments students wrote on sticky notes and stuck to a whiteboard under three headings.

What I learned

• “I learnt that all objects have a similarity.” / “Weird things relate.”
• “Sembl is a fun way to learn, not like work sheats [sic].”

What interested me

• How many things relate to a cannon. / How things relate. / I found the fact that everything is similar in some way interesting.
• The game was very interesting. / I found it interesting that there were so many things at the Museum.
• I found it interesting what ideas we, in our group, came up with.
• Sembl is a fun way to explore.

A question I have

• How would you solve if three groups got the same connection, or same votes three times?
• Can you make the time longer?
• Will we be allowed to move around like a vertual [sic] world?
• When are you going to make the iPhone app? / When are you going to produce Sembl?
• What is your goal for Sembl? / What is the main purpose of Sembl other than learning and relations?