On your Mark, Get Set, Go!

The Institute of Play and a dedicated team has just completed the development of the Spring trimester's Boss Level. Inspired by the Boss Level of a video game, the climatic moment when a player uses all of his/her newly mastered skills to challenge the "boss" and all of its powers., Designed as an assessment tool to help determine how students have understood the fundamental ideas and themes that have defined the trimester. Although students do not engage in battle during the Q2L Boss Levels, students are placed in problem-rich environment and challenged to work together, analyze findings, build theories and propose solutions.

This trimester, seven groups of students were delivered a three-part challenge: to create an event, build a balanced team to participate in each event and to compete and win at the first Q2L Field Day! The students began the Boss Level practicing related skills and grappling with their design constraints—specific materials and physical actions, particular qualities or characteristics that the event should test. Students were also tasked with creating a tool that would measure their specific quality whether it was agility, brain power or strength.

Students spent four short days developing rules and analytic tool; choreographing player performance and moves; researching and reading and exploring team work. They also underwent some fierce cardio-vascular and aerobic not only in the gym but also through fierce Dance Dance Revolution competitions. The students then moved on to electives like Sports Photography, Award Ceremony Music and Sportscasting. After using the analytic tools they developed earlier in the week to make their decisions, the students then used the data they collected to see who on their team might best perform in each event.

With event names like Anti-Archimedes, Quiz Ball, Cone Heads and Chaos X-Treme, the students designed a wide range of events: answering riddles while tossing a ball, obstacle courses with surprising twists and two-player events where players carried one another in succession. By the end of the day, each group of students had won at least one event. Although the students were hungry for one winner (and the accompanying trophy), it was clear that many of the learning goals had been met and surpassed. The students had collected, analyzed and interpreted the given data and created teams—and balanced systems—that took advantage of each participants strengths. These event-systems took the qualities of its individual components into account and found ways to regulate their given systems. Bravo Q2L designer-athletes, for ending the trimester with a day of both serious play and serious fun.