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Makahiki: Creating a Game Engine For Energy Competitions

George LeeTechHui 2011

Collaborative Software Development LaboratoryUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa

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Why Create An Engine?

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Energy Competitions Harvard Green Cup was started 35 years ago

Static websites with daily/weekly results

Oberlin College/Lucid Design Group Building Dashboard

Over 170 schools signed up for the campus conservation nationals 2012

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Downsides to Lucid’s Software Costs money to set up

We want additional modules• Activities/Events• Raffle• Ability to log in using UH credentials

We want quick iteration and deployment

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oberlin.edu/dormenergy

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oberlin.edu/dormenergy

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IU Energy Challenge

energychallenge.indiana.edu/dormstandings.html

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Building the engine

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Requirements Initial goal was October 2010

Evaluated several existing frameworks/projects by developing prototypes

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Elgg Prototype

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Pinax Prototype

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Pinax Pinaxproject.com

Based on the Django web framework

Provides a suite of pluggable applications as well as starter projects

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Fast forward to October 2010

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Alpha: User Home Page

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Alpha: Energy Data

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ReactionsIssues:• What do the graphs mean?• Is the energy data “actionable”? How can a user influence their standing?• What should a user do after they log in?

Challenge: Presenting information to users who are unfamiliar with the domain

User evaluations?

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New Goal: October 2011 New modules

User evaluations• Mockup evaluation (December)• In-lab user evaluations (April and July)• Beta evaluation (August)

Performance optimizations, etc.

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New People Old contributors: Alex Kan, Kelli Sawai, and Nathaniel Ashe

Focused on initial design and logging

New contributors: Yongwen Xu (PhD student), Nathan Dorman, and Greg Burgess

Contributed lots of code used in production

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Components of the Game

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Smart Grid

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Activity

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Energy Goal Game

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Raffle Game

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Quest Engine

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Social Bonus

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Referral Bonus

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Canopy

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Badges

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Thank You! kukuicup.manoa.hawaii.edu

George Lee M.S. Computer Science Candidate gelee@hawaii.edu