PentaQuest at the National Youth Science Forum

At PentaQuest we love talking about gamification, in fact we are known for being a bit too excited about talking about it as we take every opportunity we can to discuss it with others and learn more.

What we love just as much is educating and inspiring others to do amazing things with gamification. Today we had the opportunity to be present at the National Youth Science Forum for January 2019. NYSF runs a 12 day intensive program for Year 12 students in which students attend laboratories, workshops and many more activities to learn more about the world of STEM.

PentaQuest was invited to talk a small cohort of 50 students about gamification and how it fits in STEM. During our session we talked about how gamification is rooted in psychology and behavioural sciences and touching on the effects of dopamine, endorphins, serotonin and oxytocin. By doing this students were able to see the link between STEM and gamification. We also provided the students with 23 gamification examples from a range of applications and uses of technology to help them see how gamification can be used to solve a range of problems.

Our favourite part of workshops like these is when we get our participants to apply gamification to solving problems. It was inspiring to see young people develop gamified concepts to solve large societal problems. The types of problems we saw them trying to solve included:

• lack of reading required materials for school

• lack of public transport usage

• large mental health issues

• food consumption

• appropriate sleeping patterns

• homework completion

• global warming

We were amazed by the energy and enthusiasm of the students in the room and we are looking forward to seeing if any of the students choose to pursue the ideas they developed during the session.