Location based games as the bridge between capstone students, junior students and the public

This paper reviews recent attempts by researchers at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to increase the level of interaction between students, faculty and industry stakeholders by creating an alternate reality game (ARG) which is run during student presentations of Electrical Engineering capstone project work. The paper introduces the context, followed by a justification from current literature, the approach followed and finally a summary of the outcomes obtained by the project. Inspiration is taken from the work done by McGonigal and the MAGELLAN consortium on creating ARGs within an educational context. The Jen ratio is used as a measure of the social well-being of the space the game is played in and interactions between different players are used as the main gauge of success. Results from the first successful implementation of the game are presented and discussed. It is hoped that this study will inspire other educators in similar situations to consider playful design when interacting with large numbers of people inside and outside of the classroom.