Name: Madison Smith
Year: 5th year
Major: Environmental Engineering
Submission: SYNERGY: A Game of Heat, Work, and Strategy
Prize: $1,000
Commentary: Madison Smith's SYNERGY demonstrates how games can be excellent tools to help students learn, apply, and engage with complex STEM concepts. With SYNERGY, Madison applies a resource management game model to the domain of energy engineering. As a game creator, Madison takes care to attend to her players as learners (or is it learners as players?). The SYNERGY instruction manual conveys just the right amount of content in a light and even funny tone. Her game pieces — fabricated at the UGA Libraries Makerspace and the UGA Engineering Student Fabrication Center— are simple and appealing designs that deftly communicate the differences between devices like turbines, pumps, and motors. We appreciated the game's pragmatic approach. For example, players have to build services like water towers and solar vehicle fleets for a city, accounting for such factors as cost and efficiency in their designs. In her submission, Madison also included lecture and brainstorming notes, along with early designs and prototypes, which provide insight into her creative process. In her cover letter, Madison— who is an avid board gamer— discusses her wish to continue improving upon SYNERGY in the future. We look forward to seeing what she does next with her passion for games and her skills as a STEM communicator. Written by contest judge Chandler Christoffel
