Supercharged!

=//SUPERCHARGED!//=

//Supercharged!// is a computer game that challenges players to navigate a maze by utilizing electromagnetic charge. The game was developed by MIT physicist John Belcher by the Games-to-Teach project at MIT (run by Henry Jenkins, see [|www.educationarcade.org]).

Game Content:
The objective of //Supercharged!// is to navigate a ship through an electromagnetic maze by manipulating the charge along the maze. The ship responds to positive and negative charges which are placed in the form of charged particles. Players play the game in two phases: Planning and Playing. The game is divided into a set of levels of varying difficulty which serve as puzzles that players must overcome. Before beginning each level, the player is given a limited number of charged particles during the planning phase which he or she must place along the level to navigate their ship through the maze. Different levels introduce obstacles as well which complicate the process. Some of these obstacles include points of charge, planes of charge, magnetic planes, solid magnets, and electric currents. During the Playing stage, the player watches as their ship moves through along the maze.

As //Supercharged!// follows the laws of electromagnetics, the gameplay contains an educational element. Players learn through trial and error and intuition the laws of electromagnetism and must demonstrate this understanding in order to successfully pass each level. This was the basis for the study conducted by Kurt Squire et al. (2004) on the pedagogical value of //Supercharged!//.

Kurt Squire et al. Study:
Supercharged! was the basis of a study conducted by Kurt Squire and his colleagues (Squire, Barnett, Grant, & Higginbotham 2004) to determine how effective the game was in helping students to learn physics.