Many kids (and many adults) are fascinated by robots. We want robots to look human, and we want them to be able to do "human" things. But have you ever considered how challenging it is to program a robot to do tasks which are extremely simple for us humans to do? For example, when we reach out to pick up an object, we don't consciously think about the exact angles that are needed for rotating our upper arm and our lower arm and our hand in order to accurately put our hand in the right place. With the Motion Planning program, now you have the opportunity to try your hand (no pun intended!) at moving a robotic arm from its starting position to a specific destination. It's tricky, especially if there are obstacles in the way!
After running the program, click the tab called "A Robotic Arm," then click the "Play Game" button. To move the robotic arm, click on a section of the arm to highlight it (or click the L1, L2, etc., buttons), and then click on one of the arrow keys on the left side of the game screen in order to move the arm left or right (these keys are not shown in the picture). Your goal is to make the robotic hand line up with the picture of the hand on the other side of the game screen.
This game is freeware. Young kids (4-ish or 5-ish) might enjoy making the decisions about which part of the robotic arm to move, while a parent or older sibling does the actual moving. This makes it a fun family activity.
The game also has challenges in which you try to "drive" one or more shapes around various obstacles, which demonstrates the difficulty of programming robots how to navigate around a room.
Motion Planning Website
(also see my reviews of other programs at this website:
Child Proof,
Drawing for Children,
Game Maker,
and
Tangram).
Othello is a two-player game (you against the computer) in which both players are trying to end up with the most pieces of their own color. The game pieces are black on one side and white on the other side, and when a player "surrounds" some of his opponent's pieces (by getting a piece on each side of one or more of the opponent's pieces, either horizontally or vertically or diagonally) then those pieces are flipped over. For example, if Black surrounds some of White's pieces, then those white pieces are flipped over so that the black color is showing. However, White might later surround some or all of those pieces and flip them back to the white color, so the game keeps shifting back and forth until the very end! The game starts off with two pieces for each player in the center of the board (as in the picture), then the players take turns placing another piece on the board.
When you run this program, some of the game might be off of the screen, depending on your screen resolution. Simply click and drag the blue title bar at the top of the window in order to get it all on the screen. The first window that you see is the "About" box, so click the Dismiss button to close that window. The next window lets you choose which game to play: Othello, Checkers/Draughts, Connect 4, or TicTacToe (to see the rules for any of these games, select the game and then click the "HOW Rules" button). Select Othello, then click the OK button. On the game board, move the mouse pointer around and you will see your legal moves highlighted for you.
This is a freeware strategy and logic game which is good for older kids. It also goes by the name of "Reversi."
Othello Website (download the "installer" under the "Strategic Games" heading)
In this game, the object is to use the arrow keys to make Pop (a balloon dog) jump from balloon to balloon until he gets to the last balloon to complete the level. Each level has various obstacles to avoid, and there are certain balloons which have arrows on them and which will automatically cause Pop to jump in the direction of the arrows.
This logic game (which occasionally requires quick reflexes) is good for kids 5-ish and older. It is actually a demo, but the company is no longer in business and so the program is considered to be "abandonware." In other words, it was not originally freeware but there is no way to register it and pay the shareware fees, so for all practical purposes it is now free. The website below provides the registration key to unlock the full game, but first run the game without entering the registration key so that you can play the game in Tutorial mode (in order to learn the features of the game).
This demo by Humongous Entertainment gives you a taste of their "Putt Putt" series of adventure games. Putt Putt is a cute little cartoon car, and your job is to guide Putt Putt through various time periods in order to collect certain objects that he has lost. Humongous Entertainment has many wonderful adventure games for kids aged 4 to 8, and all of them are well-made and fun to play and very extensive (it often takes days to play one of their adventures because there is so much to see and do). My nine-year-old son still enjoys playing them (and I do too!), and my three-year-old daughter is starting to enjoy them as well. In addition to the main adventure, there are usually several little video games hidden in each adventure game, just for fun.
At computer stores I have sometimes been able to find 2 or 3 Humongous Entertainment adventure games bundled together for the price of one game. In addition to the Putt Putt adventures, they also have underwater adventure games featuring Freddi Fish (a young "super-sleuth" fish who solves mysteries with her friend Luther), they have adventure games featuring Pajama Sam (a little boy named Sam who goes on imaginary adventures as a superhero called "Pajama Sam"), and they have adventure games featuring a character named "Spy Fox" (a cartoon James Bond). We have enjoyed all of the adventure games which we have purchased, and we have played them over and over. The more recent adventure games are even better because when you start the adventure over for the second or third time, many of the clues and gadgets are different than before!
From a Christian standpoint, there are two games which I'm not comfortable with. One of them is called "Freddi Fish: The Case of the Haunted Schoolhouse." My guess is that by the end of the game Freddi learns that the schoolhouse is not really haunted, but I don't want to spend money on a game which has a "haunted" theme. The other one is called "Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside." In this game, Pajama Sam discovers that he doesn't need to be afraid of the dark. Unfortunately, throughout most of the game it seems that "Darkness" is a dark and sinister and scary character (he turns out to be friendly and lonely at the end of the game), and when Pajama Sam goes inside Darkness' house it is full of "haunted house" features. Even though these things are done in a cartoonish way, I didn't want those kinds of images in my kids' minds.
When you run the demo, make sure that your computer's sound is on so that you can watch the introductory movie as it explains the story line. Then Putt Putt will "float" in front of four different time periods, and he will wait until you tell him what to do (by clicking on a time period). As you move the mouse pointer around the screen, sometimes it will turn solid white to indicate that you're on a "hot spot" which will do something when you click the mouse button. Sometimes funny little things will happen when you click a hot spot, and other times Putt Putt will pick up the object that you clicked on (you'll need those objects later in the game, so try to find and collect them all). When the mouse pointer changes into a large white arrow, it means that Putt Putt will drive in that direction if you click the mouse button. At the bottom of the screen you can see Putt Putt's dashboard, which contains a "Quit" button and a tray which contains all of the objects which Putt Putt has collected.
In this adventure you'll visit the time of dinosaurs, the time of castles, the wild west, and the future. Putt Putt is trying to find his dog Pep, his history report, his calculator, and his lunchbox, all of which were accidentally sucked into an experimental time machine. In the demo you are only trying to find his history report. As you explore the different time periods, be sure to click on various objects because Putt Putt will need to use some of them in other time periods so that he can solve various dilemmas.
This is a free demo, and the full game is aimed at kids from about 4 to 8. These adventure games help teach your child how to listen carefully to what people say in order to learn important clues, they help reinforce logical thinking and problem-solving skills, they challenge your child in remembering how to visit places which he or she has visited before, and so on.
Putt Putt Website
(also see my reviews of other demos at this website:
Freddi Fish
and
Spy Fox).
In this one-player game you use the arrow keys to move a "puff of smoke" around the screen from square to square until you get it to the ending square to complete the level. The tricky thing is that various squares have different characteristics, such as only allowing you to go in certain directions, so you need to figure out the proper order to move from square to square in order to finish the level.
When you start the game, press Enter to get past the "splash" screen (the first screen). For information on how to play, press the left-arrow key and wait for the smoke to reach the "Information" zone. Then press the left-arrow key to move the smoke to the "How to Play?" zone (then press any key to go back to the main menu). To play, press the up-arrow to go to "New Game," then press the left-arrow to go to "Easy 10" (which lets you play 10 tutorial levels). On each level, the object is to make the smoke hit each of the "bolts" (the white circles), and land on a yellow-striped square. After you get all of the bolts, then you need to get to the blue "E" square to end the level and go to the next level. If you land on the blue "E" square before you have gotten all of the bolts, or if you go off of the edge of the screen, then you have to start the level over.
This is a freeware logic game which is good for kids who are 8-ish or older.
PuzzPower Website (click "PuzzPower" under the Downloads menu on the left)
In this puzzle game you have to rotate various mirrors in order to cause the bouncing ball to hit all of the gems, and then you have to get the ball to the Exit. After you run the game, click "Let's Play." Click on the Tutorial Level, which will explain how to play the game. When you click the S on the game board, it will start the ball bouncing. Click the mirrors to rotate them so that you can get the ball to all of the gems. To start over, click the S again. After you get all of the gems, move the ball to the E (Exit).
This is a freeware logic and quick-thinking puzzle.
This game presents numerous physics challenges in a fun way. For example, the goal of a puzzle might be to get a ball into the basket, and your job is to place various ramps, ropes, pulleys, canons, see-saws, balls, and other objects onto the screen in order to build a contraption which will achieve the goal. After you build your contraption, click the Start button to "run" the contraption, and then the various objects will behave according to normal physics rules (i.e. balls will fall according to the laws of gravity, and they will bounce appropriately when they hit things (in other words, basketballs will bounce higher than bowling balls), and so on). It's a great way for kids to explore physics in a fun and challenging way, and the tutorial demonstrates the use of most of the objects that you'll use.
This is a shareware strategy and logic game (with a free demo) which is good for kids 5-ish and older.
This is a "memory match" game for kids. When you click a blue smiley face, a silly animated smiley will appear in that same spot. Click another blue smiley and another silly animated smiley will appear. If they both match then they will disappear. This game helps build short-term memory in kids as they try to remember where they had previously seen a particular animated smiley. Oddly, though, the game allows you to click on as many smileys as you want and see the animated smileys behind them.
This is a freeware memory game which is good for young kids.
The object of this puzzle is to rotate individual sections of a three-dimensional cube (similar to "Rubik's Cube") until the colors line up perfectly on all 6 sides.
To start the game, click the File menu and then select how many times the computer should randomly rotate the sections of the cube (from 2 rotations to 10 rotations). The picture shows the cube after 2 sections have been rotated. Can you visualize in your mind how to solve the puzzle? With 3 random rotations it becomes an interesting challenge, and with 4 random rotations it can be downright difficult! The program also provides hints to help you solve the puzzle.
To solve the puzzle, click the smaller buttons around the cube in order to rotate individuals sections of the cube, and click the larger buttons to rotate the entire cube. After a little practice you'll quickly get the hang of it.
This is a freeware logic and spatial perception (in three dimensions) puzzle, and it is good for older kids.
Solve It! 3D Website
(also see my reviews of other games at this website:
42,
Booby Trap,
and
Four In A Row 3D).
