UNTANGLED - An interactive mapping game for engineering education

Retaining students poses a huge challenge in the field of engineering, as many students become discouraged while working on their degrees and switch majors or leave school entirely. Our key observation is that it is extremely important to introduce students to real-world problems early on in their studies. Too often, students become confused and dissatisfied by abstract theories in their early engineering courses, and fail to see any practical importance to what they are learning. This paper presents the idea of using an interactive game, UNTANGLED, to introduce real-world problems related to chip architecture and design in the early stages of engineering education, thus generating enthusiasm and helping students connect the theories they learn in classes to applicable problems. We believe that doing so will help elevate future engineering student retention rates.