A serious game for programming in higher education

Programming is a highly difficult skill which is a constituent of many undergraduate programmes at Higher Education (HE) level. With the advancement of games technology there is an increasing opportunity for educators to provide innovative assessment tools for students on their courses which are highly immersive and graphically indicative of the times. This could potentially be in a supplementary capacity or to a greater extent inextricably linked to the learning outcomes and assessment outcomes. Notably serious games and Games-Based Learning (GBL) have received high levels of attention from educationalists due to being motivational, novel learning approaches. This paper will outline two empirical studies conducted to develop a game to teach programming at HE level. The first study will gauge the acceptability of a computer game for teaching programming and formulating content integration development requirements. The second study will outline the evaluation of the developed game being placed in a module as a formative assessment tool to assist learners to revise for their formal class test. Study one showed that acceptability of the game was high with 61 participants completing an acceptability/content integration questionnaire. The game was designed to consolidate knowledge on rudimentary and advanced programming concepts, data structures and algorithms. 48 participants evaluated the game in study two with the results generally indicating that they enjoyed playing the game as a revision alternative with 14% of participants rating it as very effective and 51% of participants as effective for allowing them to prepare for their class test. The majority of participants also believed that games could be utilised in a formative and summative assessment capacity on courses for independent study

The family life course and health: partnership and fertility histories and physical health trajectories in later life

Life course perspectives suggest that later life health reflects long term social patterns over an individual’s life, in particular the occurrence and timing of key roles and transitions. This has been demonstrated empirically for multiple aspects of fertility and partnership histories, including timing of births and marriage, parity, and the presence and timing of a marital disruption. Most previous studies have, however, addressed particular aspects of fertility or partnership histories singly. We build on this research by examining how a holistic classification of family life course trajectories from age 18-50, incorporating both fertility and partnership histories, is linked to later life physical health for a sample of Australian residents. Our results indicate that long-term family life course trajectories are strongly linked to later life health for men, but only minimally for women. For men, family trajectories characterized by early family formation, no family formation, an early marital disruption, or high fertility, are associated with poorer physical health. Among women, only those who experienced both a disrupted marital history and a high level of fertility were found to be in poorer health

Designing a 3D serious game about career pathways in the games industry

The aim of this paper is to give a detailed overview of the development of a 3D serious game that informs game students about career pathways in the games industry. The paper provides a scoping review on the key principles related to serious game design. These core design issues are reiterated in relation to how the development of the game has adhered to them. The paper illustrates the game’s audit trail in terms of implementation providing a development blueprint for other educators to follow when developing an educational game. The learning outcomes of the game are also accentuated and how the implementation of the game has catered for them. An important aspect of the paper is to highlight how the underlying aspects of game design can accommodate intrinsic content and motivation whilst accommodating the various pedagogical frameworks embedded in the gameplay. The characterising goals of the game have adopted a linear and cyclical approach that allows the player to progress through the gameplay completing formative and summative assessment challenges. The serious game was developed using the Unity game engine adopting a hub and spoke design. A key challenge when designing the game was how to ensure that the game remained endogenous when designing the game’s levels. The design considerations presented in this paper provide a solid implementational framework about how to implement principles of learning and assessment associated with employability skill sets with a specific focus to the games industry

Fatigue damage accumulation in titanium alloy IMI 834.

As current aerospace materials are subjected in service to increasingly onerous conditions of stress and temperature, the hazard of fatigue failure becomes more acute. Engineers utilise the methodology of fracture mechanics to estimate fatigue crack growth rates but fatigue crack initiation, which involves the interplay of many microprocesses, is only investigated empirically. The aim of this study was to investigate the fatigue damage accumulation mechanisms in the titanium alloy IMI 834 in order to develop a fundamental understanding of the controlling physical processes and the micromechanisms which occur at the dislocation level. Load controlled four point bend test specimens of IMI 834 were cyclically fatigued to failure with an R ratio of 0.1 over a range of maximum stress levels and the fatigue and fracture surfaces were examined by optical and scanning electron microscopy. The examination of cross-sectional foils prepared from the fatigue surface enabled the fatigue damage to be examined in the T.E.N. as a function of orientation and depth below the specimen surface. The distribution, orientation and type of slip bands were identified in the primary-a and the transformed-fJ grains, and their interaction with secondary phases, precipitates and grain boundaries was determined. The results show that fatigue damage accumulation in INI 834 occurs primarily on basal slip bands in the primary-a phase and on basal and prismatic slip bands in the transformed-fJ phase. The segregation of a-stabilising elements to the primary-a phase during alloy processing allows the formation of an ordered phase which increases the propensity for planar slip on the basal plane. A mechanism for fatigue crack initiation along this plane is proposed. In addition, the occurrence and identification of an interface phase is discussed in the light of current theories regarding this phase

A Post-Accident Analysis of Civil Remotely-Piloted Aircraft System Accidents and Incidents

A sample of 152 accidents and incidents involving Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, more commonly referred to as drones , have been analysed. The data was collected from a 10-year period, 2006 to 2015, conveniently sourced from a limited population owing to the scarcity of reports. Results indicate that safety occurrences involving Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) have a significantly different distribution of contributing factors when sorted into distinct categories. This provides a thorough and up-to-date characterization of the safety deficiencies specific to RPAS. In turn, this contributes to the development of adequate safety management systems applicable to the RPAS sector. The majority of RPAS occurrences involved system component failures which were the result of equipment problems. Therefore, airworthiness instead of pilot licensing needs to be considered first when regulating the Remotely Piloted Aircraft System industry. Human factors and loss of control in-flight were found to be the second most common contributing factor and occurrence category , respectively; Remotely Piloted Aircraft pilot licensing will help reduce the probability of these secondary occurrences. The most significant conclusion is that reporting systems must be implemented to address RPAS accidents and incidents specifically, such that more useful data is available, and further analysis is possible facilitating an improved understanding and greater awareness

Structural Integrity of an Electron Beam Melted Titanium Alloy

Advanced manufacturing encompasses the wide range of processes that consist of “3D printing” of metallic materials. One such method is Electron Beam Melting (EBM), a modern build technology that offers significant potential for lean manufacture and a capability to produce fully dense near-net shaped components. However, the manufacture of intricate geometries will result in variable thermal cycles and thus a transient microstructure throughout, leading to a highly textured structure. As such, successful implementation of these technologies requires a comprehensive assessment of the relationships of the key process variables, geometries, resultant microstructures and mechanical properties. The nature of this process suggests that it is often difficult to produce representative test specimens necessary to achieve a full mechanical property characterisation. Therefore, the use of small scale test techniques may be exploited, specifically the small punch (SP) test. The SP test offers a capability for sampling miniaturised test specimens from various discrete locations in a thin-walled component, allowing a full characterisation across a complex geometry. This paper provides support in working towards development and validation strategies in order for advanced manufactured components to be safely implemented into future gas turbine applications. This has been achieved by applying the SP test to a series of Ti-6Al-4V variants that have been manufactured through a variety of processing routes including EBM and investigating the structural integrity of each material and how this controls the mechanical response