New video game teaches teens about electricity

A new video game, designed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, gives teenagers an understanding of electricity by solving a series of puzzles in a bid to encourage more of them to study engineering at university. A video game is an ideal way to teach students about electricity as it allows players to visualise the underlying concepts and the relationships between them. Diarmid Campbell The game, called Wired , is available to download and play for free from today, and teaches the key mathematical concepts unpinning electricity. Electricity affects all of us every day, but is difficult to teach as it is abstract, difficult to visualise and requires lots of practice to master. "A video game is an ideal way to teach students about electricity as it allows players to visualise the underlying concepts and the relationships between them," said Diarmid Campbell from Cambridge's Department of Engineering, and the game's designer. "It provides a structure for incremental challenges, each one building on previous ones, and there is a set of tried and tested motivational techniques that can encourage people to push through tricky areas." Campbell spent close to two decades in the gaming industry, developing titles for PlayStation, Xbox and PC. He is now a senior teaching associate at Cambridge, and develops video games to inspire more teenagers to study engineering.