Image Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
12
Application Example: Edutainment Game
It was late Friday night in a local bar downtown in IP-valley. Mick and SB were
hanging out and debating who had the most miserable life. At one point the bar-
tender interrupted them and basically told them to shut the fuck up or leave the bar.
“Too depressing,” he said.
Mick looked at him with a puzzled expression and wondered why the normally
gentle and polite bartender suddenly lost his temper. Later that evening when only
a few customers remained, the bartender again approached Mick and SB. Fearing
they might actually be kicked out of their favorite place, they quickly sobered up
and smiled innocently at the man.
“Sorry guys,” he started, while looking a bit pale. He opened three beers and
began to talk.
When Mick and SB were walking home that night they agreed to try and help the
frustrated bartender. He had explained how his only kid under-performed in school
and had a very hard time concentrating. The bartender had blamed all the hours his
kid spent playing computer games and he explained that he had tried everything,
but after his wife died the kid detached himself more and more from the rest of the
world, and the bartender couldn't take his son's one remaining pleasure from him.
“What can we do?” Mick asked SB.
“Oh come on man, that's obvious,” SB replied, “we develop some kind of edu-
tainment game where the kid can learn something while playing.”
SB went on to explain his theory about the butterfly-effect of teaching, namely
that students need small islands of knowledge, which they are good at, in order to
learn new stuff.
“If you have solid steppingstones, you can do anything,” SB concluded.
Mick was about to argue and ask what that had to do with butterflies, but since
he had no better idea (and he actually also had to admit that there was some logic in
the argument) he agreed to the overall idea and promised to come up with an idea
over the weekend.
