RALEIGH – Most kids like to play video games, but what if they could also be learning at the same time?
Enter Plasma Games, a Raleigh-based EdTech company that has developed a 3D educational game, called Sci-Ops, to do just that.
“Our game fuses science curriculum with real-world applications and in-demand STEM careers inside engaging game play,” Hunter Moore, Plasma’s founder, told WRAL TechWire.
Sci-Ops is a skills-based game that teaches chemistry and physical science concepts through a turn-based strategy game like chess. It also integrates multiple modes of instruction, like videos, simulations, text and story-driven content.
Moore, who has a master’s of business from UNC-Chapel Hill, said he initially had the idea for Plasma Games based on his work experience at IBM, Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and Sandia National Laboratories.
While there, he said, it became apparent that there was “a shortage of eligible, trained technical staff.”
He’s now on a mission to change that.
“Kids learn in video games all the time. It’s just usually the things we don’t want them to learn, like armor protects you against arrows but not magic,” Moore said.
Sci-Ops sneaks in a little STEM learning with it’s challenges. Want to protect your character with a better suit of armor? Better know the periodic table. Want to jump higher? Learn some engineering.
Visually, the game offers characters like FortNite and a blocky look like Minecraft.
The startup recently launched to the Triangle in June, with a larger rollout across the country scheduled in coming months.
Part of that effort includes lodging a bi-partisan bill in North Carolina’s House of Representatives to get its game into 25 of the state’s districts.
“Students of all genders, races, and socioeconomic statuses showed significant gains in learning, motivation, and self-efficacy in the independent university-led research study with around 3,000 students and 71 teachers,” he said.
“We are on a mission to instantly inspire the next generation of science leaders.”
