Immune Attack

Immune Attack is a downloadable game with outstanding graphics, detailed information, and engaging game play about the immune system.

The scenario that you will help a child with Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID) by sending a nanobot, complete with probes, into her blood stream to teach her immune cells how to function again. This is immunology at the molecular level--pathogens, macrophage receptors, transmigration, and more. The immune system information is presented both in written and spoken form. It can be skipped over but not easily since it is integrated in with each mission.

This is a very large file that will take some time and storage to download and install, but that is because of it's amazing graphics. I am amazed at how much my 8 year old can tell me about immune function.

The game was created by the Federation of American Scientists. Below is the trailer on YouTube. One difficulty is that there are no instructions other than what the characters in the game tell you--and they don't tell you how to save the game. It's very frustrating having to start this complex game over again from the beginning each time!

Try Engineering

I found Try Engineering looking for some fun interactive games for my kids on the web. The site is for people interested in engineering careers and so has a lot of information about careers and schools.

Two tabs are of interest in our house. One is the Lesson Plans tab that has a long list of interesting engineering activities for either homeschool or co-op. You can download an 8 page pdf catalogue of all the available plans. The other is the Play Games tab. They have 4 interactive activities produced by the site--Bionic Arm Design Challenge, Questioneering, Design a Parachute, and PowerUp. They also have a good-sized list of other interesting engineering games. I showed this to Ds#2 just before he went to bed and now he can't wait to get on the computer in the morning!

Hyperdo Kit from Zome

We are on school break for Holy Week and this is a good time to do special projects, kits, and other activities that we don't seem to get to during more scheduled weeks.

I've blogged about Zomes before; this "toy" is one that both the kids and I agree is great. Zome changed their product so they no longer sell long struts in their kits (they are special order.) Instead they now have super short struts plus hyper short red (pentagon) struts. You can see the parts here. While kids can't make models they can crawl through as easily, the models they make are easier to handle and build.

The Hyperdo kit is an economical way to get a large number of super short and hyper short parts if you already have the other sizes. That's what I did when they were first available. This month you can also buy the half pound or two pound bag of random parts for 50% off using code pbb-50.

If you don't have any Zomes yet, the "naked" kits are a good deal. I bought tackle boxes at Walmart for under $5 to keep them in. For this month you can get them at 30% off with the code nkd0409.

Yesterday we finally put together the hyperdo (short for hyper dodecahedron.) As you can see in the picture, if you look at it from one angle you see a flower in the center; look from a different angle and you see a tunnel. Interestingly, the thumbnail of the flower-center angle clearly shows a Star of David in the empty spaces of the model that is harder to appreciate in the larger shot. I'll have to see if I can see the star when trying to cast shadows with the model--it should look golden as the sun will come through those areas!

A New Game Favorite With A Science Theme

So maybe your kids will learn more geography than science from this game; still its science theme could lead to some interesting science and math rabbit trails. And it's a great game.

See my full review of Pandemic at Games for Homeschoolers. I was never a fan of cooperative games because they never really had much gaming aspect to them. This one is clearly different and is considered by many to be one of the best cooperative games out there.

Game Review posted for Totally Gross

I just posted my review of Totally Gross! The Game of Science at Games for Homeschooling.
The boys and I certainly laugh a lot and learn quite a bit of trivia playing this game. It does have a good measure of the gross and impolite.

The game ends with a little hands-on experiment, I feature I really like. Today, ds#1 had to weigh himself and figure out how much he would weigh on the moon (the card tells you that it would be 1/6th of your weight on Earth.)

As you will see on my gaming blog, I gripe a bit about the cheap components of educational games. I buy many other board games in the $20 price range with far more durable and aesthetically nicer parts, and they are more interesting games to play. Unfortunately, we pay for the educational value alone, which, in some cases, can be achieved with a home made game for far less money. I can't imagine writing up all those trivia questions, though.