Raspberry Pi Game at Makerspace

As many Rowan students may know, the Makerspace is a place for Computer Science students to unwind and get some hands-on experience with real machines. Last month, the Makerspace hosted a special event to kick off the spring semester. The meeting was held on Friday, February 4th in Room 201 of Robinson Hall.

The event focused on the use of Raspberry Pi computers, for the purpose of developing a game. In this article, you can find a brief overview of the event, as well as what the plan is for the Raspberry Pi game moving forward.

The event was primarily run by Rachel Dietz and Shauna Hurley. Rachel is the President of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), and Shauna is the President of the Association for Computing Machinery for Women (ACM-W). They were tasked with bringing Raspberry Pis to the Makerspace, and the idea that they decided on was to use Raspberry Pis to develop a game. The game in question would be designed to test students’ skills in Computer Science. This was the primary focus of the meeting that was held on February 4th.

At the meeting, students learned about using Raspberry Pis and brainstormed ideas for the Raspberry Pi game. The game idea that they decided on was essentially a series of coding challenges, made to test the player’s skills in a variety of coding languages. They are even planning to reach out to several CS professors here at Rowan and have them submit their own ideas for coding challenges.

Rachel and Shauna have also stated that they are planning for the game to have a scoring system as well as a leaderboard. Players will earn points based on how well they perform in the coding challenges, and can weigh their scores against other players on the leaderboard. The leaderboard would be immediately visible upon opening the application, making it easy to see who the top players are at any given time. Currently, Rachel and Shauna are looking into implementing a database to store player info in order to make this possible.

When asked what she is most excited about for the Makerspace, Shauna stated that she really appreciates that the Makerspace is a place for everyone. Anyone who is interested in Computer Science, regardless of their actual major, can come here to learn and participate. Rachel agreed with this sentiment, and added that she likes having the opportunity to work on something that Rowan students will still be interacting with longer after she graduates. In a way, they have created a lasting legacy here at Rowan.

This semester is sure to be a great time to get involved with the Makerspace. If you want to keep up to date with the goings-on with the Raspberry Pi project and the Makerspace, be sure to join their official Discord server (https://discord.gg/ZkqjNuHtC5). There’s lots to look forward to this semester, so be sure to stop by some time!

Written by Cole Goetz  |  Posted 2022.3.8