Ready, steady...go!

We're now in the position of having a model and potential game idea which we'd like students at Leicester to test (ideally in the Physics Department but do let us know if you're interested and from elsewhere).

We've set a competition where the winners each get 100 pounds and everyone who takes part gets 50 pounds. We need 5 teams of 3 really. You can send Tim an email with the subject line 's4s competition' indicating your willingness to take part and the names and emails of your three team mates!

You may also notice we have a newsletter which we've call Mikasa where you can quickly get up-to-speed with where we are with the project.

Thanks for everyone's interest so far and best of luck with your own efforts for sustainability!

Big Chief!

Here's D and Eddie playing the s4s game 'Big Chief'. The egg boxes contain various counters such as seeds and sweets. The central box represents parameters in the environment and we each have our own box representing our village. We then work through the game rules to see how our choices, such as how much land and fertiliser to use for crops, cascade around the environment.

We had a bit of fun but since we were also working out the order of the rules and other such game mechanics it was quite tiring. We managed just three years in about an hour and a half!

Next we'll be asking students at Leicester to develop their own games, based on the videos and other learning materials. Then these games will hopefully be used in local schools.

Help!

Dear friends,

As part of Science for Sustainability we've been working on a model loosely based upon Lake Naivasha, as shown in the videos below. The model is simply an Excel spreadsheet, a trick I picked up at NECSI. Its to be used as the basis for a game design and shows chiefs and their villagers plus various aspects of the 'environment' such as fish in a lake and neighbouring eagles. The idea then is that all these parameters are interlinked thus demonstrating the complexity of 'ecosystems' (in the broadest sense).

So I have a version for MS Excel which I'm fairly happy with - at least it demonstrates the approach (it will be down to local groups to develop their own model and subsequent game) - and I have a version which works in Documents to Go on Palm OS.

We are hoping that the learning materials we develop will now feed into TESSA, at least we are talking about this. However, we cannot assume that everyone in Sub-Saharan Africa has access to MS Excel as its cost may be prohibitive.

Hence, we'd like to convert Big Chief to Open Office format. Which is where we would like you to help please?

I tried last night but couldn't get the charts making sense. I also removed circular references where the first year's "plants" for instance take their value from the last years - this was throwing up an error (523 I think).

Charts which would be useful include:

• chiefs populations - of the 3 villages
• environmental populations - eagles, fish, fertiliser and bank
• crops - for the 3 villages
• 'external' variables - sun, rain, war and disease

If anyone is a whiz at Open Office or just has some spare time to take a look we'd appreciate it. If you do get something reasonable then please just post a comment here and we'll sort out how to add it to the project.

Cheers,

Tim