RumbleBlocks: Teaching science concepts to young children through a Unity game

RumbleBlocks was developed at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) to teach engineering principles of tower stability to children ages 4–7. The game features tower construction, tower piece removal, and tower comparison levels which were designed with feedback from early childhood educators and learning researchers, and iteratively improved with feedback from child play tests. This paper emphasizes the development process, and initial formative play tests with children. It was developed using the Unity3D game engine, allowing for export as a stand-alone application, web player, or to mobile devices. First results are promising in terms of educational effectiveness, with more studies planned for the future.