APD Week8---- 'Play and Audience'

By Sean Zhang

Theme: play and audience

Context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPrU0bkMoY

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhNBHvDpLAE

When I think about play and the audience, it reminds me of some of the games I played as a child. One of the games is called tangram. Almost every child has played tangram in their childhood. Players can combine seven different shapes into different patterns. In fact, tangram is a kind of entertainment game that can help students learn geometry problems and enhance their problem-solving ability. Now, there has been a lot of research on tangram patterns. I think with this kind of simple entertainment games, players can really be attracted to the process of playing the game and develop their imagination at the same time.

Method: First I make the pieces of the tangram out of drawing paper. To make the game more interesting, I added some difficulty. Generally, players will create some graphics according to their own ideas. However, the rules of my game are to give the outline of certain patterns, such as animals, boats or characters, etc. Then, ask the player to arrange the position of each piece of tangram through these Outlines, so that the tangram finally put together the pattern into the given pattern.

Response: I invited some students to participate in my game as players. In the beginning, I tried it myself as a player to test if the patterns I provided were correct. Interestingly, when I started the tangram, I didn't even find the corresponding tangram quickly by observing the outline of the pattern. It seems that I think this process is simple, which is actually a little difficult. Then, in the process of inviting these players into the game, they encountered the same situation. In fact, it looks like a simple outline, but players need to match each piece of tangram to a specific outline to see the desired pattern.

Reflection: In researching this game, I really like this way of thinking. Through the tangram game each player shows a rich imagination, when they see the outline of these specific patterns, they can easily distinguish what is. However, after several attempts, they found that the process was not easy. Sometimes, they have finished most of the patterns, just one or two pieces of tangram in the wrong position, the whole pattern becomes different. In fact, when they play, I can very understand their feelings. I think this week's game was really enjoyable for the audience.