{"id":575,"date":"2020-09-05T09:37:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T16:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/?p=575"},"modified":"2020-09-05T09:39:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T16:39:03","slug":"turing-tumble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/2020\/09\/05\/turing-tumble\/","title":{"rendered":"Turing Tumble"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Originally posted by MET student Kevin Andrews on 03\/06\/2017<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Let&nbsp;you and your kids build real mechanical computers!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We all need to detox from our screens and computers.\u00a0It is a common fact that the\u00a0amount of time children spend glued to a screen has risen dramatcally in the last 20 years and to make matters worse children are also now multi-screening \u2013 using more than one device at the same time. The question now becomes how can we keep kids engaged and excited to learn\u00a0while\u00a0programming without having them in front of a glaring\u00a0device? Enter\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/871405126\/turing-tumble-gaming-on-a-mechanical-computer?token=1f87b430\" target=\"_blank\">Turning Tumble<\/a>, a mechanical\u00a0board game\u00a0created by programmer Paul Boswell \u2013 he\u2019s well known for programming\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ticalc.org\/archives\/files\/ss\/83\/8312.gif\" target=\"_blank\">complex games for Texas Instruments calculators\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 and maker Alyssa Boswell, the Turing Tumble lets you use small parts to create logic flows in order to solve puzzles.\u00a0It\u2019s multi-tasking without the multi-screens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Turing Tumble Kickstarter Preview\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iSjx6uh8MFg?start=1&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The game is simple. The set of marbles roll one at a time from the top of the board through a series of pins and \u201clogic\u201d pieces. When the marble hits a flipper at the bottom it releases another ball \u2013 creating a computing cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Players add logic to the game board by placing six different types of parts onto the board. The \u2018Bit\u2019 is a particularly important one. Each time a ball runs over it, it flips to point the opposite direction. Pointing to the left is like a \u20180\u2019, and pointing to the right is like a \u20181.\u2019 Gear bits are the most interesting part, though. Gear bits are just like bits, except that they can be connected to one another so that when one is flipped, it flips the connected gear bits, too. It\u2019s these parts that make the computer Turing-complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The important thing to remember is all of this is presented in the guise of a puzzle game. A book includes 51 games that teach kids how to make XOR gates and other computing principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The project is entirely bootstrapped and the pair hopes to raise $48,000 to start building the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Boswell created the game to teach everyone how to program. It rose out of frustration. In his work at the University of Minnesota he found himself stuck with scientists who couldn\u2019t manage programming or computational analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally posted by MET student Kevin Andrews on 03\/06\/2017 Let&nbsp;you and your kids build real mechanical computers! We all need to detox from our screens&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/2020\/09\/05\/turing-tumble\/\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Turing Tumble<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pitch-pool","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":577,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}