The Loop: An Educational Toolkit for the Circular Economy

An Educational Toolkit for the Circular Economy Aisling Wang 1216352 DM5551 IPD Dissertation

Acknowledgements With this acknowledgement, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who has contributed to this project.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor David Harrison, for his support and encouragement throughout my thesis. I am grateful for his time and patience in helping test the game during my design process. He is also the one who provided the opportunity for me to show my work to Mr. Ken Webster, the head of innovation, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

I would like to thank my second supervisor, Dr. Sharon Baurley, for her expert insights which have an important Also, I would like to express my gratefulness to Dr. Fabrizio Ceschin, Dr. Verity Parker and Mr. Ken Webster for sharing their insightful opinions and knowledge with me. Special thanks goes to the Education Team of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation for their relevant advice and feedback.

Moreover, I would like to thank my friends who have made this project possible and have supported it during the entire process of evaluative research and competitive testing, they are: Tacy Tang, Yu Liu, Qinyi Chen, Yulun Ting, Lina Guo, Yuanfei Wang, Hai Qian and Lily Cai.

Abstract CONTEXT

AIM

METHODOLOGY

RESULTS

Education is an essential approach in achieving the circular economy.

By studying through active learning methods, the awareness and interest of the subject could be enhanced among university students. An educational toolkit for the circular economy is designed as an engaging learning tool for beginners. Some of the circular economy terms and concepts are merged with game components, so the toolkit provides both high

This project is aiming to seek a way of introducing circular economy to the future generations and to raise their awareness towards the idea. It is crucial

Several research methodologies are applied in this project, including both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

These approaches are focusing on exploring, generating or evaluating valuable facts and insights found in background research, user

From studying existing educational toolkits and user needs, the product requirements are

game experience. Also, the QR code technology is added in the toolkit to provide a self-learning approach for long-term study.

user needs and achieves the ideal learning outcome. The toolkit is designed to defeat traditional passive learning methods and to provide an innovative self-learning approach. One challenge of game design is the user recognition, so it is important to build a game structure which is easy to understand and follow, in order experience.

and product testing stages. Also, design tools and methodologies are used in the entire design process to develop professional deliverables.

engaging, effective and active.

The game experience is proven to be engaging and playable through the product testing with potential users, and the results of competitive testing shows its effectiveness afterwards. The QR learning cards play a role as the substitute of traditional textbooks in learning the circular economy concepts, so students can learn actively by making their own decisions.

Contents Introduction -- 4 Project Questions & Aims -- 5 Lterature Review -- 6 Case studies -- 23

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1

RESEARCH INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY & REVIEW

3

Brainstorming -- 37 Initial Concepts -- 38 PESTLE Analysis -- 41 Why Game -- 43

DISCOVERY

Overall Research Plan -- 30 Background Research -- 31 User Research -- 32 Concept Definition -- 33 Product Testing -- 34 Relationships of all Methods -- 35 Game Framework -- 53 Game Contents -- 57

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5

7 DELIVERABLE

DEFINITION

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Survey Results -- 45 Image Board -- 49 Stakeholders & Benefits -- 51

DEVELOPMENT

DESIGN

The Final Version -- 73 Logo Design -- 79 Competitive Testing -- 85 Collaborative Practices -- 92

Evaluative Research -- 66 Game Version 1-4

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REFERENCES & APPENDICES CONCLUSION Conclusion -- 98 Recommendations -- 99

List of Figures Figure No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

The linear economy and the circular economy A telephone is disassembled to be recycled Design for a circular economy Scrap tires The production of asphalt rubber Two stretches of Interstate 40 in Arizona The production of biomass ethanol is growing worldwide The making process of biomass ethanol Corn waste Used newspaper Blown cellulose can be installed in different structures Cellulose insulation showed better overall performance R-value of different types of insulation materials PET flakes Key steps of turning PET bottles into polyester fibre PET bottles The founder of the EMF was giving a lecture Different kinds of educational games An AR application Scanning QR code Game classification Game design process Case studies AR carbon cycle game

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

The SOLE Toolkit The ESD Toolkit The Recycle card game The CE Toolkit Research Literature review Questionnaires Evaluative research Interviews Card sorting Competitive testing A classic card game Circular economy Designer's role Cooperation Key stakeholders The CE model The food cycle The water cycle The version 1 - A card game The board and Chance Cards Players are represented by trucks Version 2 - Instruction sheet The introduction sheet in use

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

The evaluative research process (version 2) The board of version 3 The chance cards The evaluative research process (version 3) The evaluative research process (version 4) The winning zone & upcycling centre (version 4) Game components The evaluative research process (final version) The winning zone (final version) The upcycling centre (final version) The chance cards (final version) How to scan the QR code Sketch of logo design The game group The reading group Original test sheets E-wastes The point sheet in the game The dice The score card New chance cards The winning zone (E-waste version)

1 INTRODUCTION & REVIEW -

Introduction Project Questions & Aims Lterature Review Case studies

Introduction WHAT

WHERE

The project is to design an educational toolkit for the circular economy, which includes an educational board game and a set of self-learning

The toolkit could be used both in class and after school. Users can learn basic concepts through playing the game in class and can dig deeper

interest in learning the circular economy concepts. After utilizing a series of research and design methodologies in different phases of the design process, the educational game is designed to be an active learning tool

scanning the QR codes.

WHY The literature review outlines that education is considered to be an essential tool for achieving circular economy as it could raise the public awareness. Learning through an active learning method like an educational game would be especially suitable for users to learn an unfamiliar subject. According to the results of evaluative research and competitive testing, the learning outcome of using this toolkit is better than reading the material.

WHO The design process is focused on the future generations especially university students since learning circular economy concepts requires fundamental knowledge of science and society. According to the research results, university students hold positive attitude toward learning through playing an educational game. The behaviours of the target population it is essential for them to learn about the circular economy during their education period.

WHEN The toolkit is suitable to be applied at the early stage of learning the circular economy concepts. Starting by learning about the basic knowledge of recycling and bio extraction, students could easily adapt into the idea of circular economy and be ready to explore more content by themselves.

HOW circular economy model in many aspects, so students are able to learn through practice. The self-learning cards in the toolkit can be utilised as the encyclopaedia of the circular economy concepts that user can use to access web links by scanning the QR codes of key words to read more relevant reports and data.

A recommendation section of this dissertation explains the future steps of this project. Further development would be focused on the game content and website building to complete the entire system. Also, a professional competitive test is needed in the future for further discussion of the

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Project Questions & Aims In this chapter, project questions and aims are introduced in three general aspects: the circular economy, education and game design. These questions are discussed in the literature review and the research results, and the project objectives are considered as the criteria of the design deliverables.

1. Circular economy What is the circular economy?

What is recycling and upcycling? Any examples?

Why education for the circular economy is important?

2. Education What is the current situation of circular economy education?

What is the best way to introduce the circular economy concepts?

What technology could be used in education?

3. Game design How to classify games and what game is suitable for educational purposes?

What is the general game design process and what elements make a game successful?

What framework should be applied in an educational game for the circular economy?

How circular economy content should be presented in the game? approaches?

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1. Circular economy To investigate key principles and terms of the circular economy. understand.

2. Education To rise interest in learning while reinforce knowledge memorisation.

To improve learning outcomes by using technologies.

3. Game design To combine circular economy content with a suitable game structure.

To defeat the traditional learning method in the competitive test.

Literature Review This chapter explores the literature surrounding related subjects of the Educational toolkit for Circular Economy. Starting by investigating the history and the fundamental principles of the circular economy concept, and following with the critical facts and examples of the upcycling processes. A series of related technologies and their possible applications are studied; design processes and characteristics of different kinds of games are also presented. Finally, this of this part of study are essential and fundamental for future studies.

1. Circular Economy The idea of Circular economy is focused on taking insights from living systems. It is hard to trace back the precise author of this idea but it is believed practical applications to modern economic systems and industrial processes have gained momentum since the late 1970s. Established in 2010, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has more recently outlined the economic opportunity of a circular economy. As an independent charity, it works in education, business innovation and analysis to accelerate the transition to a Circular Economy. (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2012) Circular economy is relatively a new concept since it only has about 40 years of history so it is necessary to accelerate building peoples awareness to this idea.

The circular economy is a generic term for an

maintain life and are usually based on carbon compounds. Technical nutrients and materials retain their high quality for the production of upgraded products over and over again without entering the biosphere. Generally speaking, circular economy concepts can be widely applied from the food industry to manufacturing industries.

Circular Economy is the opposite of the linear process of “take, make, dispose� and it

eliminates the concept of waste. It is a closed loop system which is aiming to generate energy only from renewable sources. For example, when a product reaches the end of its useful life, it is taken back, disassembled back to its original quality materials which upgraded version of that same product, or another high quality product. (Elffers, 2013)

cycles: either a biological cycle or a technical cycle.

Biological nutrients are materials designed to reenter the biosphere safely. These kinds of materials are the primary materials that organisms use to 6

E

BUILD RES I

DESIGN OUT WASTE

URCES SO

1. Design out waste As mentioned above, the central idea of this principle is to eliminate waste. Waste does not exist when all materials or components of any product are carefully designed to be easy to disassemble and re-purpose

STE IS F WA

NEWABL RE

key principles:

D OO

RO M

Referring to the book Towards the Circular Economy published by the

THINK IN ‘SYSTEMS’

4 3 5 RELY ON EN

ER G YF

H DIVERS ITY UG

1

CE THR EN O LI

an ideal Circular Economy system should ultimately aim to run on renewable sources. Shifting taxation from labour to energy and material consumption would fast-track adoption of more circular models, Stahel claimed. (2012)

important role in this part as the product design considerations have to consist the whole life cycle management of the product.

4. Think in systems As the Circular Economy model is simulating the natural ecosystem, it is easy to realize nothing in nature grows out of context. Cited from Allen (2012), CEO of Biomimicry 3.8, companies should frame all the problems from a system integration perspective and always in context in order to solve them. According to this principle, it is crucial to understand how

2. Build resilience through diversity

whole system and each part.

more connections and nodes, a system is more likely to be stronger while facing external shocks. On the other hand, too much resilience is important in creating an effective system. Practically, diverse and creative thinking in cooperating with different sources and industries could be very valuable.

3. Rely on energy from renewable sources It is an irreversible global trend that energy is shifting increasingly from fossil fuel to renewable sources. Inspired by the natural eco system, 7

5. Waste is food Coined by Braungart and McDonough, the phrase “waste is food” summarises the circular philosophy – though as Braungart himself would say today, “the word waste should not even be in there, there is no such thing, everything should be food.” From keeping the material in its own cycle, opportunities of upcycling products are possible in a variety of industries.

These principles explain the main ideas of circular economy in a clearly principles as their starting point of learning circular economy.

2. Recycling And Upcycling Recycling is a key component of modern waste reduction and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" waste hierarchy. The process of recycling and also reusing the recycled material are proven to be advantageous for many reasons, for example, reducing the amount reducing GHG emission. Recycled materials can also be converted into new products that can be consumed again such as paper, plastic, and glass. written by Gunter Pauli in 1997. Referring to McDonough and Braungart (2002), the goal of upcycling is to prevent wasting potentially useful materials by making use of existing ones. This reduces the consumption of new raw materials when creating new products. Not like “downcycling”, where quality of a material reduces over time, “upcycling” allows the new generation product has the same or higher quality than the previous generation.

In a circular economy, factories produce goods that endlessly re-circulate the same technical materials by tracking their products and manage their whole life cycle. In this business model, companies can make upgraded products through recycling or upcycling instead of leaving products to be Since the raw material price is continuously increasing, recycling and upcycling has seen widely in use due to its current marketability and the lowered cost of reused materials. (Goldsmith and Belinda, 2009) Upcycling is undoubtedly an ideal model in circular economy. It is of high people’s behaviour.

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Design for Longevity

Service Design Model

Design for Re-manufacture

Design for Disassembly

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Views of Experts

remanufacturing, they use two-third less energy when they remanufacturing engines, and that is a huge saving. Some companies are innovative and willing to take risks while others are more conservative. However, there is no compulsory to survive. Here we say, we think the world is changing this way, are you in or you are out? If you are out, we don’t really care, but you might not be there. This is the core business, this is how you will survive in the future: To deliver better products to people with a better price while using less resources and less energy.

The circular economy seems to be an obvious direction to go in, why has it not been done?

Maybe because one little group did not talk to another, and what has been done is trying to synthesis what is going on and present it in a way that is easy to understand. Then people will go “Yeah that is obvious” rather than saying “this is very specialised that you have to talk to and to do it heuristically.

What do you think about the current situation of recycling recyclable wastes? What do you think the future of it would be?

Verity: There is a lot of potential. From my perspective, it’s all about making it as simple as possible to recycle as much as possible. I think there will be more investment to improve the recycling/re-processing capability in the UK to make facilities more accessible.

In person interview E-mail interview Head of Innovation, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation 10

Waste tires processed to crumb rubber

SCRAP TIRES

per person per year

Every year, more than 3 billion tires are dumped worldwide.

(INTERENERGORESURS Company, 2001) About 80% of a tire is made from oil which is a non-renewable resource. As tires are not biodegradable, they should be recycled and repurposed at the end of their lives rather than simply discarded. However, seas of tires still exist in dumps around the globe. One way of recycling scrap tires is to use them as a fuel source for generating power, but this is not eco-friendly since burning a ton of tires produces almost the same amount of carbon.

Energy recovery is a low-grade, undesirable option that cannot be achieved without pollution and contribution to climate change. (Hickman, Doug, 1999) An recycling method of using scrap tires is to produce rubberized asphalt road surface in many ways: Reduces thermal cracking caused by frost its elastic properties; Reduces the maintenance cost of the road over its life cycle and reduces car accidents by the skid resistance feature of this material. (Reschner, 2002) Producing rubber asphalt not only helps recycling scrap tires, but also lowers the rate of tire wearing, which decreases scrap tires radically.

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Crumb rubber is blended with bitumen and used to produce asphalt rubber Asphalt rubber is used in a typical paving procedure

the conventional surface (left) is already severely cracked, the rubber asphalt surface (right) is in much better shape.

Transportation

CORN WASTES

Left: growing worldwide, especialy in America and Europe.

The Production of Biomass Ethanol

Corn waste has been widely used as an abundant source of winter feed for beef cows. Since its wide availability and low cost, it is also used in livestock bedding industry and the production of ethanol. (Edward, 2011) As a kind of non-cellulosic feedstock, corn wastes have the potential in generating ethanol as far as it is carefully harvested to avoid foreign material into the bales and also be kept dry.

Corn waste is an ideal source in making biomass ethanol----the ethanol made from non-grain plant materials. As a renewable energy, biomass ethanol is the recycled product of corn wastes. Technologies in producing years to build the value-assed process. Not like petroleum-based fossil fuels, biomass ethanol is quickly biodegradable in surface water, groundwater and soil, and is the safest component in gasoline today. reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Independent analyses comparing ethanol and gasoline show ethanol reduces GHG (green house gas) emissions from 30-50%.

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NEWSPAPER cellulose can be installed in both new or existing structures. Cellulose insulation is favored because users can blow unrestricted depths of Newspaper is widely recycled and used in the creation of many kinds of products: new newspapers, cereal boxes, egg cartons, pencil barrels,

coverage.

creating new paper. Since this kind of recycling process always generates great amount of water consumption, it is hardly environmental friendly.

As an recycled product of used newspaper, cellulose insulation is a smart product. The Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers Association (CIMA) claims that insulating a 1500 square feet house with cellulose will recycle as much newspaper as an individual will consume in 40 years. (Fisette, 2005) The manufacturing process of this kind of material is also eco

insulation showed better overall performance than

with good eco performance, cellulose insulation is also proven effective of resistance to heat blanket, R-3.2.

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insulation materials.

PET BOTTLES

PET bottles are a common kind of recyclable waste used worldwide and the recycle rate keeps increasing having reached nearly 39% in 2011. bottles, APET sheets, strapping tape, miscellaneous applications and PET Polyester tent is one of recycled products of PET bottles since polyester costs for textiles. Both polyester and PET bottles are basically made from the chemical “polyethylene terephthalate�. The process of the upcycle consists of the following stages: First, separating and collecting PET polyester tents.

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3. Education The core objective of education for circular economy is to inspire the next generation to re-think, redesign and build a positive future.

Organizations are currently trying to identify the knowledge and skills required for related industries to achieve an accelerated transition to a circular economy.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation works on supporting critical and creative thinking about circular economy across both secondary schools and higher education.

Also, an international master-level fellowship programme is established to develop innovative projects within business. For educating younger generation (age 12-19), tutorial materials can be easily downloaded from the foundation’s website in use of giving lectures about circular economy concepts. In these teacher’s guides, key principles of circular economy were introduced and a series of interactive activities were recommended to enhance the

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" We need young people with science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, with creative minds and a passion to make a difference. The circular economy provides a positive, coherent, innovation challenge through which young people see the relevance and opportunity of these subjects in terms of re-thinking and redesigning their future."

Steve Holliday, Chief Executive, National Grid.

Views of Experts What do you think about current education toward sustainability and the circular economy? What will be the future of it?

There are several teaching modules in the European universities currently, which are focusing on product design and sustainability to integrate environmental requirements into product design. However, there are not many modules which focus on product service systems, business models and service design. We think saying there is a better way to do business. So we are relying on them, in the circular economy concept it is important to focus on both the product design and the business model. Apart from design schools, business schools will say eventually we want to have people who are able to be ready should also have modules about the circular economy concepts to learn what is the most optimising business model for adapting to the circular economy. It problem of the education is, it is almost as linear as the economy. is basically shifting the focus from selling products to selling function. In the future, it is important to have a broad perspective to design a system in the we will do it through business instead of formal education, because circular economy. For designers, it is important to have the knowledge about the government wants people to have jobs, and this could be a better design disciplines and how to achieve user satisfaction in a circular economy job in the future. Education is due for the next big turn around with business model. combining information and technologies.

How important do you think it is for people to understand the circular economy concept?

In person interview

In person interview

Head of Innovation, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Lecturer in Design for Sustainability Brunel University 16

The Learning Pyramid

What do think about active learning methods and passive learning methods in learning a subject?

I think it is important to have the combination of both. Of course it is required about the background and the framework of the module.

However, especially in design, you can only learn when you apply in exactly the proportion would be of these two learning methods because it depends on what level of students you are teaching, but I will say

In person interview Lecturer in Design for Sustainability Brunel University

Institute indicates how different teaching methods provide different lecture, reading, audiovisual and demonstration. In contrast, three active learning methods at the bottom consist discussion group, practice by doing and teaching others. Arguably, the difference in retention between and deep cognitive processing.

According to this Learning Pyramid, people can remember only 10% of what they read while learning something. The research also proved that people learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process, so people remember 90% of what they simulate a real experience and what they say as they do an activity.

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The focus of university classroom has shifted from a teaching-centric approach to a learning-centric approach in latest years. (Barr & Tagg, 1995) Switching from teaching to learning, interactive classroom activities are used as a fun way which makes students learning more without realizing it. While having fun, many side effects occurred including enthusiasm, motivation and positive attitudes towards learning.

(Wilton, 2012) Giving lectures is a traditional and effective method of presenting information but to use it as the only mode of instruction causes problems. Classroom activities can keep students’ interests and makes them respond well to contents taught in the class (Swift, 2013), and allow them to apply course material to “real life” situations and to solve practical problems.

As one of active learning methods, introducing interactive educational games into the classroom is one of the hottest trends in education evolution. Games are especially useful when some concepts or theories are more easily illustrated than discussed. In these cases, a wellconceived game may convey the idea more readily. For example, the concept of "laws of nature" is hard to convey through lectures but requires participants to "discover" the natural law by formulating and testing hypotheses as the game proceeds. (Paulson and Faust, 2013) At University of Pennsylvania, there’s “Fare Game" in which students learn helps marketing students learn how to market a new product which by the University of Central Florida, students’ math test score increased 8.07 points in average after playing Dimension-M over 18-weeks, compared to an increase of only 3.74 points for the control group.

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4. Technology

Augmented reality is known as AR which creating the sensation that virtual objects are present in the real world by using software and virtual reality. When it is required to add virtual reality elements in the real elements cannot be seen with naked eyes so it relies on some sort of display such as a computer monitor or a head-mounted display. In an AR Making an augmented reality interactive device consists of the following steps: Programming the logic, research for best marker patterns, full control over AR detection parameters and customizable content. The position of camera and lighting equipment are also important to achieve the ideal effect of AR device.

Augmented reality is an innovative approach in education. It is a fun way to raise students’ interests in learning by engaging students to “walk in” the virtual world and to explore actively.

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The QR (Quick Response) Code is a two-dimensional matrix code that belongs to a larger set of machine-readable codes. Comparing with barcode, the QR Code can hold much more data and it is more reliably and at higher speeds.

Users can generate their own QR code free on websites so it is becoming a trend to make personalized QR codes for social interaction. QR codes storing addresses and URLs may appear on any object which users might need information. By using a camera phone equipped with a reader application, users can scan the QR code to display text or open a web page. This act of linking from physical world objects is termed hardlinking or object hyperlinking.

By utilizing QR code in learning environment, part of the textbook contents can be compressed into QR codes with key words as titles.

Students can choose what they want or need to learn, then complete the learning process by scanning QR codes and learn through online sources.

GAMES

SIMULATION GAMES

DEFINATION: Games that have been built around an on-going representation of a reallife situation of some sort.

SIMULATIONS

SIMULATION GAMES USED AS CASE STUDIES GAMES USED AS CASE STUDIES

SIMULATED CASE STUDIES

EXAMPLES: MONOPOLY: Simulates the property market.

Chess: Simulates a contemporary battle.

Tennis ( vedio game): Simulates tennis.

And, almost all Augmented Reality Games.

DEFINATION: Exercises which have all the characteristics of games, simulations and case studies.

EXAMPLES: Simulation games which designed for use in

CASE STUDIES

research tools.

5. Game Design Games are designed mostly for enjoyment and sometimes for educational purposes. Key components of games are objectives, rules, challenges and interactions. The sets of games, simulation and case studies overlap to a greater or lesser extent and their relationship with

like psychomotor skill games and manual games, and electrical games.

Manual games, which contain an extremely wide range of exercises, are often applied to educational and training games. Majority of card games and board games are manual games since this type of games do not require any electrical equipment and can be easily used in a classroom.

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1

2

3

Establishing the design criteria and need for the excercise

basic idea for the excercise

viable package capable of meeting its design criteria

Design process of most games can be divided into four general phases: Firstly, identify the target users and design objectives, also the content, format and structure of the game.

Secondly, develop the basic idea, for example, adapt an existing exercise to the game to meet the needs. Then, create prototypes to meet all design criteria, and keep testing them and game generally available and publish it.

Understanding characteristics of different game formats is essential while designing a game. For example, compatibility, high competition factor and fairly simple rules are main advantages of card games. Being used

4 Making the excercise generally available

as an educational tool, card games can help to reinforce knowledge of understanding of basic facts, principles, are fun to play so participants tend to be highly motivated while playing.

While trying to increase the chance of winning, players are encouraged to master the educational content.

Another game format is widely used in educational purposes as well: Board games. Board games and card games share many similarities, however board games are more fun and more complicated than card games.

Board games are especially useful in reinforcing understanding of principles and processes.

The Word Cloud of the Circular Economy

Case Study The case study is to use multiple sources of research evidence to achieve an in-depth investigation of single events or instances in context. As an exploratory research strategy, it is useful for designers to understand existing phenomena for comparison, information and inspiration in the design process.

Case studies of existing educational toolkits are necessary in background research. It is crucial to analyse more possibilities by looking through technologies used in similar products.

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The augmented reality game is designed by GR/DD and placed in The London Science Museum. It communicates the complex subject of the carbon cycle to the public through a simple, engaging and educational game. Players can add man-made elements to the virtual island by adding AR blocks on physical grids. While the player making the balance of carbon amount, science information is shown on a screen.

With highly interactive augmented reality components and eyecatching animations, the idea of the carbon cycle is explained clearly and understandable. Audience can experience the entire learning process actively while having fun building the balance in the digital world.

Disadvantages of this game are mainly about its usage restriction.

The game device is not portable and it is powered by electricity, and the interaction is between the machine and the player instead of player-to-player. In conclusion, this game format is not suitable to be used as an in-class educational game.

AUGMENTED REALITY MAKING BALANCE

INTERACTION & ENGAGEMENT

SIMPLE GAME V.S. COMPLEX SUBJECT

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MOTIVATED BY PEER-INTEREST

LEARN TO ASK QUESTION

AT SCHOOL & AT HOME

USE INTERNET SOURCES

This toolkit is specially designed for children to use in a self-organised learning environment. The SOLE Toolkit allows educators to support students gaining knowledge from certain online resources. From using this toolkit, students can learn to ask questions, which is an essential ability in learning.

Relying on online sources, the toolkit can be accessed at both school and home according to users’ needs. It is designed for group studies, so students can be motivated by peer-interest while learning together.

This toolkit is more suited to helping students in “exploring the world” than “learning a certain content”. It can be useful in a general learning

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STORY TELLING

INSTANT USER FEEDBACK

VISUALIZE STUCTURE & FRAMEWORK

The ESD Toolkit (Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit) is a series of exercise to help communities to develop sustainable goals in order to build a better local educational system.

The concept of sustainable development is also introduced in the toolkit to help communities to create an education for sustainable development programs.

This toolkit helps schools and communities understand sustainable development concepts by story telling, which is an appropriate approach for all age groups as all can understand

ADAPT TO DIFFERENT CULTURES

the concept. By using different types of worksheets in workshops, instant user feedbacks can be collected and converted into valuable user research data. Worksheets of the ESD Toolkit are designed as visually simple structures so that they can easily adapt to different cultures.

This educational toolkit is text-based, so it is more like an academic tool than a fun game. Participants might loose their interest in learning while using the toolkit and might also be disappointed since there is no competition at all.

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CLASSIC GAME FORMAT RECYCLABLES ARE GOOD SIMULATION OF REALITY

POINTS AND REWARD

Recycle is a simple card game aiming to help students remember recyclable materials. The game format and rules are similar with rummy, a classic card game, and players can win the game by collecting, saving, and reclaiming recyclable material cards.

As a simulation of reality, recyclables are good and toxic wastes are bad in the game, and players can get this idea clearly and quickly while playing.

Points can be earned as a reward in this game which encourages players to reclaim more recyclables.

This game is designed for primary school students so its rules are quite simple, as are its contents. To design a more playable game, the rules and game structure should create more space for players to make their own decisions while competing with others.

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EVALUATIVE TOOLKIT

ONLINE TEST & OFFLINE WORKSHOP

FOR BOTH BUSINESS & USERS

INSTANT FEEDBACK

Designed by Jamie Evans from the University of Cambridge, the Circular Economy Toolkit has consolidated all possible opportunities and provided information on how a business A company can run a workshop after reading through the the direction to start creating more valuable and sustainable products and services.

As an online assessment tool, the interface of this toolkit is divided into four parts: circular economy, toolkit, assessment tool and workshop. Starting with a brief introduction of the circular economy, users can follow the routing easily and run their own workshops at the last stage.

The logic behind this toolkit is to identify the problem area of a business based on answering a series of questions about manufacturing and services. It is an evaluative system, which transfers the complex circular economy to simple questions so it can adapt to users with different backgrounds.

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2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY - Overall Research Plan - Background Research - User Research - Product Testing - Relationships of all Methods

Overall Research Plan used to generate new hypotheses based on the results of data collected about different variables. is often helpful to understand meanings, beliefs and experience.

Design research is a fundamental component in the design process and choosing appropriate research Toolkit for the Circular Economy is a user-centered design project so all related research should emphasise the area of user research. Referring to the book Universal Methods of Design, ten research methods are chosen to help develop the design project in four general phases: Background research, These research methods include both quantitative and qualitative research which help to get a comprehensive understanding of topic area.

The aim of this research is to explore the practical value of using educational toolkits in the context of university and in-class learning in order to address the questions necessary to improve the awareness of circular economy concepts of future generations.

Since this research is mainly of an exploratory nature and also requires testing of product usability, both quantitative and qualitative research methods are applied in solving project problems.

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STAGE 1:

Background Research The objective of this part of research is looking up additional information on the topic and a brief overview of some of the important facts related to circular economy concepts, educational toolkits and game design principles in order to deliver initial design concepts and design opportunities. At this stage, design direction is pointed out applied in background research are listed below:

As a qualitative and exploratory research method, it is a useful component of any design project, to collect and synthesise research of the topic area. It is often useful in literature for the reviews to organise the material by research categories. For example, in this case the focus of the design is an educational toolkit of circular economy, the literature should be sectioned into topics related to education in universities, toolkits, educational games and circular economy.

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Secondary research consists of information collected and synthesised from existing data, rather than original material sourced through primary research with participants. From collecting data of circular economy facts, problem areas can be As a critical part of the project, secondary research establishes what has already been done and what has not, gathering comparison data, and helping to suggest research directions or methods that should be used in the current design project. collected data and facts.

As a component of exploratory research, secondary research will contribute an essential component of groundwork to aid in the understanding of the design research and user territory under investigation. Therefore, secondary research is the cornerstone of further user research.

The case study is to use multiple sources of research evidence to achieve an indepth investigation of single events or instances in context. As an exploratory research strategy, it is useful for designers to understand existing phenomena for comparison, information and inspiration in the design process.

Case studies of existing educational toolkits are necessary in background research. It is crucial to analyse advantages and disadvantages of more possibilities by looking through technologies used in similar products.

STAGE 2:

User Research User research, or user experience research, is a set of techniques and methodologies implemented to create and improve the user experience. User priorities, and investigating interactions and architectures as well as the sensory experience (e.g. vision, touch, hearing).

In this design project, user research is used both before and after generating design concepts. At early stage of design process, it is essential to understand users’ knowledge level of topic area and also their attitudes and needs related through cyclical rounds of evaluative

shown in this page:

Questionnaires are a primary research method that is both exploratory and evaluative. It is a useful survey instrument designed for collecting self-reported information from people about their characteristics, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, behaviours, or attitudes. Depending on the form of questions, the results of questionnaires could be used in both qualitative and quantitative researches.

User survey is an important reference in this project since one of the design objectives is related to user behaviour change. Besides, it is also critical to know users’ experiences and their attitude toward in-class activities in order to adjust design direction.

Evaluative research is a quantitative primary research method, which involves the testing of prototypes or products by real potential users of a system in design development. The objective of using this method is to gauge human expectations against the designed product in question, determining whether the product is useful, usable, and desirable. As an educational toolkit, getting involved and evaluated by target users is a crucial part in whole design process.

Evaluative research is ideally iterative, based on feedback from potential users in cyclical rounds product details. In order to develop better products, evaluative research is utilised in testing every

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STAGE 3:

functionalities. To achieve these goals, visual references and external opinions could be valuable.

As a qualitative and exploratory research method, the image board is a collage of collected pictures, illustrations, or brand imagery can be used to visually communicate an essential description of targeted aesthetics, style, audience, context, or other aspects of design intent. In this design project, the image board is carefully designed referring to the environment it will be used in, user preferences, game contents and related emotional elements.

The Design with Intent toolkit introduced 101 is a design tool for designers to prescribe particular behaviours. This idea generation tool is a set of cards which provoke design concepts by asking questions and giving examples of particular principles in action. The toolkit could be used in design workshops to help designers to make improvement of their ideas.

Interviews are a qualitative and fundamental research for direct contact with participants, of experience, opinions, attitudes, and perceptions.

on people who have specialised or expert knowledge to contribute. To design an educational toolkit for circular economy, experts with sustainability research background or toolkit design experience are Image boards not only communicate design considered as ideal interviewees. Analysing user behaviour through communicating circular concept to external world, it also could be economy concepts, so the designer is not designing their insights about the topic area and their used as an internal tool: a tangible focus for opinion toward designing the toolkit could be only the product, but designing behaviour at one the designer, a visual reminder of the aesthetic level or another. The Design with Intent Toolkit is helpful for taking further steps in the design context or audience for inspiring their design process. The feasibility of the design concept efforts. In this design project, this method products, services, environments and other systems could be improved from seeking for advices is used to keep design process going on the from experts whom with extensive experience and how their behaviour changed. Examples given right track through continuous self-checking in the toolkit could be used as inspirations in the according to the image board. design process to help exploring design solutions.

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STAGE 4:

Product Testing manufacturer, often in comparison to other similar products. In a product testing process, a researcher measures a product's performance, safety, quality, and compliance with established standards and seeks to ensure that consumers can understand what products will do for them. It is crucial for an educational following paragraphs.

When user comprehension and meaningful categorisation is critical, card sorting can help clarify. As an exploratory, generative and observational participatory design technique, designers can explore how participants group items into categories by utilising card sorting method.

Competitive testing is the process of conducting qualitative research to evaluate the usability and learnability of competitors’ products. In this

In the product testing process of this design project, card sorting is used as a testing tool to examine educational outcomes. Comparing with traditional testing methods, card sorting is relatively more intuitive and user-friendly. Since card sorting can uncover how real-world users make sense of your “insider” or “expert” understanding, it is also useful in testing the game logic in this design project.

The purpose of applying this research method is to determine the

traditional passive learning methods including lecture and textbooks.

educational outcomes between a traditional method and the toolkit.

Competitive testing provides designers with an opportunity to assess a competitor’s products from a user’s point of view and it is focusing on user behaviour rather than attitude toward products.

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Relationships of all Methods In conclusion, research methods are utilised in all stages of the design process in this project.

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3 DISCOVERY

-

Brainstorming Initial Concepts PESTLE Analysis Why Game

Brainstorming

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Initial Concepts Initial concepts are produced based on opportunities found at the brainstorming stage.

These concepts are focused on visualised design tools, evaluative toolkit and educational toolkit for the circular economy. The forms of toolkits includng augmented reality devices, smartphone applications and board games.

The design objective of this initial concept is to visualise economy concepts in business.

By using this augmented reality device, circular economy terms and their impacts are shown clearly on the screen while moving the AR blocks on the table top. User could see increase by adapting to a circular economy.

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This concept is another type of augmented reality which uses wearable AR devices. The basic idea is that users could see different information from one screen by wearing glasses in different colours.

This device allows people to make their own decisions while learning the circular economy concepts. Not like other augmented reality devices which only designed for one player, this device could be used for a group of people.

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The third concept is focused on seeking opportunities of combining physical learning cards with a smartphone APP. The key component of this concept is to use QR code as the intermediary in communicating circular economy concepts.

By scanning the QR code, latest circular economy events and data will be displayed on the smartphone screen. Users can manage useful data by using the APP and to build a personal database.

This concept is a evaluative step to take for shifting to the cicular economy.

While playing a puzzle game or a board game, the player answering questions. Issues and solutions will be given according to the answers, so the player could get a basic idea of what should be done.

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P The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development began on January 1, 2005. It’s objective is to promote education as a basis for a more sustainable society and to integrate sustainable development into education at all levels and all areas of life.

The UK Government’s Natural Environment White Paper brings forward current ideas on the value of environment into policy making. During the 3rd Annual National Greening Education Conference and Exhibition in UK, May 2013, the topic was about building a sustainable future. In the Sustainable Growth Agenda, the Education Sectors have been placed in the unique position of playing an important role in embedding sustainability within the heart of education and complying the sustainable skills required for shifting to a low carbon economy.

E The increasing price of raw materials will have more and more effect on the business bottom line and it is obvious that a company could in close loops. From the data analysed by WRAP, there will be more than 12 million tonnes of electronic waste in the UK between now and 2020. These E-wastes will include precious metals which have a total market value of £7bn.

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's report, a move towards a circular economy could save the EU between £220bn and £250bn moving to the circular economy. From the case study of DESSO, a Dutch carpet manufacturer who successfully adapted to the circular economy, its market share increased and the 2006 to 9% in 2010.

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S Education is an essential tool for achieving the circular economy. The society would not invest in an education if it does not serve a purpose.

The education of the circular economy is aiming to lead the younger generation to create a closed loop economy which is prosperous and engaging, a modernity which we can feel at home with.

Just like the fact that the most educated nations leave the deepest ecological foot print, people with higher education level and incomes tend to consume more resources than the poor. Thus, it is important to change people’s behaviour at the higher education level, where people would have basic knowledge of science and humanities to understand the circular economy concepts.

T

L

E

Augmented Reality: Augmented reality could be utilised as an innovative approach in education.

It is a fun way to raise students’ interests in learning by engaging students to “walk in� the virtual world and to explore actively.

Nowadays, the gap between the economy and the environment brought some laws related to waste management that are not favourable for the circular economy. China's top legislature passed a law to promote circular economy in 2008. The goal of this law is to boost sustainable development through energy saving and reduction of pollutant discharges.

According to the law, the government will

Currently, the public awareness of the circular economy is relatively low. Function, value, style and brand are considered to be more important than environmental considerations.

However, a research result shows that some consumers would like to purchase an electronic product containing recycled components if two items available were broadly similar in every other way. Most consumers do not realise that manufacturers are taking environmental issues into consideration because there is a lack of appropriate labelling on the products.

QR Code: By utilising QR codes in a learning environment, part of the textbook contents can be compressed into QR codes with key words as titles. Students can choose what they want or need to learn, then complete the learning process by scanning QR codes and learn through online sources.

encourage innovative technologies in recycling. technologies and equipment will get tax breaks.

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Why Game

“About game is both fun and transfers idea.�

John Nordlinger Senior research manager Microsoft Research’s gaming efforts.

It is crucial to choose proper learning methods while studying a new subject. As one of the

active

learning approaches, educational games have been widely used in class sessions. It is believed that student ought to be

engaged with what they are doing in order to have a deeper understanding of the subject.

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While playing an educational game, students are more likely to

develop positive feelings toward a course, which is helpful to raise interest and also improve the chance of paying attention.

Research illustrates that students are

Comparing with other types of games, the

learned from games than from a typical lecture.

as it

more likely to remember the educational material

simulation game

allows students to make decisions, see the results of those decisions, and then to make further decisions based on previous results.

4 DEFINITION - User Survey Results - Image Board

User Survey Results

What's your favorite kind of tabletop game?

Have you ever scanned a QR code?

An online survey is produced on Survey Monkey to investigate general preferences and needs of the target population. The survey users, users’ attitude toward active learning methods and users’ preference of different types of games. The format of the questions is multiple choice, a user-friendly approach of collecting user data.

The link to online surveys is spread to the target audience through social networks. Survey Monkey analyses the results automatically. studied and critically analysed for further user research. class, which learning method do you prefer?

Do you know what is the concept Circular Economy?

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"sustainable development" ?

learning methods from options below.

Key Findings

85% DO NOT understand the concept of circular economy

85% of university students do not understand the concept of circular economy, which indicates that of sustainable development in either high school or university, which means majority of them have the fundamental knowledge of sustainability and concepts. It is also shown in the result that 76% of participants prefer learning new subjects by playing games or doing experiments by hand. It is not surprising that university students are passionate about in-class activities since they often play games in their leisure time. Their favorite game formats including simulation games (31%) like Monopoly and table RPG games (36%) like Bang. These two game formats share some similarities such as being highly interactive and competitive, relatively complex game rules and suitable for 2-4 players to play. The majority of participants are smart phone users thus up to 91% of them are familiar with getting information through scanning QR codes.

In conclusion, potential users have a positive attitude toward active learning methods including in-class activities. Simulation games and table RPG games are selected to be most popular game formats.

Since current university students are lacking in circular economy knowledge, there is a great opportunity to build their interest by some sort of active learning approach at the introduction stage of the course. In this case, an educational game could be an ideal choice to achieve such goal.

Doing experiment by hands is a popular in-class activity

76%

85% FIRST LEARN the concept of sustainable development in high school or in university.

prefer learning new subject

BY PLAYING GAME

9 91% 31% % + 36% %

SIMULATION GAMES & TABLE RPG GAMES are more popular than other table games

Almost all the students know how to scan QR CODE by smart phone

Toatal number: 62 Age: 18-30 Occupation: University students.

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Views of Experts

of the circular economy?

Do you think an educational game could help to raise people's awareness towards the circular economy and recycling? And why?

Yes I think a game could raise people's awareness as it is thought provoking. I think it could be possible for you to achieve your goal through designing the presentation and the format of information. For example, I particularly like

did not mention sustainability in my talk? What is wrong with word sustainable?

One reason is there are too many disputations about the word sustainable, and another reason is it usually gets associated with personal actions like giving up something for the environment, or consuming less. In most of the world, the idea “we haven’t had anything yet, we need more, not less.” Anyway, young people about the individual and guilt, nothing to do about the economy.

In person interview E-mail interview Head of Innovation, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation 47

What would you expect university students could learn from a future business model?

From my perspective, I hope university students can learn the relationships between different materials/products and make them into practical use. I hope design students can gain information that the future by their behaviour.

E-mail interview

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Image Board The educational toolkit for the circular economy is a product which aims to communicate ideas to the target population. It is crucial for this product to merge with the environment and the scenario university classrooms, in-class activities, classic games, user habits and related technologies.

As an educational game for the circular economy, the colour theme should be able to communicate the sense of both sustainability and playfulness. It is widely known that the colour blue and green are often being used on ecofriendly products and sustainability projects, so these two colours were added to the game’s colour theme. From an observation of classic board games, it showed that bright colours are frequently used in games, especially bright contrasting colours. Therefore, the colour pink and orange were added to the colour theme to enhance the sense of playfulness. A colour them with four colours is a classic form in table games since many games are designed for four players.

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As an educational game for the circular economy, the colour theme should be able to communicate the sense of both sustainability and playfulness. It is widely known that the colour blue and green are often being used on ecofriendly products and sustainability projects, so these two colours were added to the game’s colour theme. From an observation of classic board games, it showed that bright colours are frequently used in games, especially bright contrasting colours. Therefore, the colour pink and orange were added to the colour theme to enhance the sense of playfulness. A colour them with four colours is a classic form in table games since many games are designed for four players.

Study and social life are probably the most important things to do for university students and the development of social networks and smartphone applications

The main user environment of the educational toolkit is the classroom.

Usually in a university there are many sorts of classrooms for different courses and the interior layout of a classroom is often dictated by the course. Since the game will be designed for 2-4 players, a table in a proper size will be needed to play the game.

As a paper-based board game, this game and all its props will need to be stored in a box while not using. Since at least four to

for a class of students, a storage space is required to store these boxes. Various visual elements will University students spend more be contained in the game, which time on learning from online sources than they were in the past means the classroom must be bright enough for players to see the props. decade. Also, students are used Also, verbal conversations will be to searching for information with made during the gaming process, mobile devices such as mobile so a certain distance between each phones and tablet computers instead of using a PC. Customised table is required to avoid distraction from other groups. Many existing and personalised products and services are the new trend among in-class activities involves group discussion and simulating exercises this group of people because majority of them are independent which require a similar circumstance with this educational game, so this minded. game is very likely to adapt well to a current university classroom.

From searching pictures related to QR codes, the result shows that most of them are located on publications or websites.

The QR code has its own special outward that when people see it they know it contains some sort of information. A QR code never shows up alone, some descriptive text is often around it to tell people what is it about. QR codes can be either huge or tiny, as long as the scanner can recognise the matrix, so they are made in many sizes for different purpose.

Images about augmented reality games show that almost all interactive components are designed in square shapes, because the AR markers are usually square. These interactive components often have visualised icons or illustrations on the topsides to indicate the contents while their AR markers printed on the bottom side are be captured by the camera. This kind of augmented reality device gives a feeling of playing a puzzle game, which is using real components to build a visual world.

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$ The educational toolkit for the circular economy allows university students to learn the CE concepts in active learning approach. By enhancing the interest toward the subject, a positive learning outcome could be expected. acquiring the CE knowledge because they could be more competitive in the future business model. Students also can learn how to cooperate with others in a group through the process of gameplay.

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An in-class educational game could be utilised as an active learning tool in teaching a module.

Particularly, a module could be organised better by combining a game with traditional passive learning methods. A game could be helpful to stimulate students to learn more about the subject, and also allows students to learn by applying theories into practices.

Tutors are likely to get more active feedback by letting students learn through an active approach, so the teaching quality could be improved.

Many businesses are seeking for opportunities to moving to the circular economy, and they will need their employees to have relevant knowledge.

Some university graduates like to start their own business, so knowing the circular economy concept would help them to survive in the market.

By thinking in system, cooperation across different industries could help reduce resource consumption and also enhance the resilience to external risks.

Also, it would be easier for companies

A charity like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation could get more public attention by raising the awareness toward the circular economy.

University students are considered representing the future generation, and engaging them to the circular economy is a crucial step of promoting the idea. From playing the educational game, students would realise that the circular economy is not that far from their lives and its concepts are attractive and interesting to learn. understand a circular economy model A game could be easily promoted that helps them to accept innovative from schools to families, so there business approaches such as purchasing is an opportunity for the charity to the performance instead of purchasing communicate the circular economy the ownership of a product. concepts to a boarder audience through popularising a game.

5 DESIGN

- Game Framework - Game Contents

Game Framework six cards were selected to help seeking design opportunities. From previous research it showed that all successful games share similar characteristics, including simple rules, high reward system and interactive feedbacks.

The Design With Intent Toolkit According to the card Possibility Trees, it is possible to make a map in a board game for players to travel. The playability of the game would be enhanced as the players can choose different routes to achieve different goals. Not only the route could be so players are allowed to make their own choices in every step they take in the game.

The key word Simplicity on the card means that the designer must respect the cultural stereotype and the users habits while designing a game. Every visualised element should be carefully designed to ensure it makes sense to the target population.

Simple icons can communicate complex ideas if they are well designed, and the logic behind the game should also be easy to follow. The rules of the game should be able to guide the players to achieve both the ideal learning outcome and the enjoyment of game. Thus, all related game components should be tested with target users and the entire game structure effective game framework would be possibly built.

The card Habit gives a hint about how to adapt an existing routine into a new game. It was also mentioned in a book called A Hand Book of Game Design that it is always a better choice to use an existing game structure than to create your own.

There are not many successful and well-known games around the world and people are familiar with the rules of these games since their early ages. Breaking the habits is much harder than respecting them, so new behaviours should all be built into game.

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The role-playing game is a very popular game type since it brings players the sense of empathy while playing a role in a virtual world. Role-playing games are all about simulating the real character and the corresponding behaviours. to communicate ideas through the role. Usually in a role-playing game, the role would be asked to do some sort of tasks and to achieve a certain goal at the end of the game. The tasks could be designed with educational purposes.

For example, the role must solve a problem related to the circular economy to get to the next level. Stakeholders in the circular economy could be the templates of the roles in the game, and special skills could be added to how to cooperate with others while playing the game, so a group of students can learn how different stakeholders work together to build a circular economy business model.

Accumulation appeal frequently in many types of games as a part of the rewarding system. Players are often asked to collect certain amounts of some sort of tokens to get to the next level or to complete a task. While collecting the tokens, players usually need to repeat certain movements several times.

Thus, educational contents could be added to the movement and the memory could be enhanced during repetition of the movement. A reward system could make the players more motivated, and give the players a sense of accomplishment. As a game component, collections should be applied with other elements to ensure the playability of a game.

Apart from the collections, giving scores is another approach of providing feedback to players. By making comparisons with a reference point, players could know their progress rate in a game so they can adjust their gaming strategies. Scores are not only the instant feedback of the actions, but also indicate the rank of players. The score system encourages players to compete with each other and to break the record. While ideal behaviours lead to plus points, improper actions can cause minus points. For instance, players can get the educational game for the circular economy.

In conclusion, the Design with Intent Toolkit is a very enlightening approach at the design process. From observing the chosen cards, possibilities of the game structure and game components are found and the general picture of the development, the combination of the game framework and the educational game contents should be completed, and a series of evaluative testing with target users is necessary to ensure the feasibility of the game.

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Analysis Of Classic Board Games It is shown in the result of a user survey among university students that the board game is their favorite type of tabletop games. As a type of manual games, the board game can be divided into different categories. Board games can be either based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two and usually have a goal that a player aims to achieve. Currently, most of the board games are based on defeating opposing players in terms of counters, winning position or accrual of points and these features are suitable for developing an educational game for the circular economy. There are some classic board games which can be used as the reference game structures, such as Monopoly, Dungeons & Dragons and The Settlers of Catan.

A study of these three games is needed in

MONOPOLY

Dungeons & Dragons

A Fast-Dealing Property Trading Game named after the economic concept of monopoly.

A role-playing game which characters embark upon imaginary adventures with a fantasy setting.

A strategic game which players assume the roles of settlers attempting to develop holdings.

Playing time: 60-240 minutes Game instruction: 8 pages Instruction terms: 18

Playing time: Varies Game instruction: 330 pages Instruction terms: 15

Playing time: Varies Game instruction: 330 pages Instruction terms: 15

MONOPOLY has been played by 750 million people around the world.

20 million people worldwide have played Dungeons & Dragons since it was created.

Settlers of Catan has sold nearing 25 million copies worldwide.

Google search results: 9,490,000

Google search results: 6,780,000

Google search results: 2,190,000

educational game. The evaluative analysis will be focused on following aspects: The

Skills required: Negotiation, Resource management, Strategy

Skills required: Role-playing, improvisation, tactics, arithmetic

Skills required: Resource management, Trading, Planning

diversity of the game equipment and the popularity among the target population.

The data is collected from online sources

Random chance: High

Random chance: High

Random chance: Medium

Equipment: Board, Chance cards, Community Chest cards, deeds, dice, houses, hotels, money, international currencies, extra currency, tokens

Equipment: Background history, character sheet, species, occupation, ability scores, polyhedral dice, alignment, Hit points(HP), experience points(XP)

Equipment: Island, settlements, cities, roads, resources cards, land types, dice, victory point, development cards, soldier cards

the result could be seen clearly from the quantitative analysis.

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The Settlers of Catan

From the diagram it is easy to see that the Monopoly has the simplest instruction which only has 8 pages.

The Settlers of Catan’s game rules are relatively simple as well: a 20-page instruction with 32 short chapters. In contrast, the rules of the Dungeons and Dragons are too complicated since it is a role-playing game with various background histories and characters.

Most chapters in its instruction are about setting character attributes and players can hardly remember these settings.

Monopoly is considered to be the grandfather of all modern board games, and it is probably one of the most popular board game worldwide. Monopoly has been played by 750 million people around the world, not only because it has a universal appeal, but its theme is also heavily adaptable and its rules are based

These three games all require certain skills to play: the Monopoly and the Settlers of catan are focusing on the resources management skill while the Dungeon and Dragons emphasises the role-playing technique. The random chance is depending on the use of dice, so luck is a relatively heavy factor on the outcome of both the Monopoly and the Dungeon and Dragons. The Settlers of Catan, however, has a lower random chance because it is a strategic game.

Equipment in the Monopoly and the Settlers of Catan are simulations of the

The other two games are at similar level in popularity, but the Dungeon and Dragons has been developed in video games and movies so it has more Google search results than the Settlers of Catan.

rules and popularity, it is possible to apply its framework to the educational game for the circular economy. While playing the Monopoly, it is easy for players to realise that the poor become situation of the world. From observing the future trend, it is believed that a business would survive only by shifting to the circular economy in the near future, so there is a chance to develop a game based on this hypothesis. By using cards and tokens, relationships between stakeholders or processes in the circular economy could be indicated and built, and player-toplayer competitions could occur as well while in this gameplay.

The game Monopoly combines luck with strategy, which ensures both the playability and the complexity of the game. In conclusion, the game structure of the Monopoly is very likely to be the suitable framework of the educational game, and there are various possibilities in adapting circular economy concepts into the game components.

in the Monopoly and the natural elements in the Settlers of Catan. Cards play an important role in both of the two games, and the management of these cards is crucial in winning. Tokens are applied to represent different properties, and trading these properties with other players is another important action in these games.

Equipment in the Dungeon and Dragons are mainly related to character attributes in an imaginary world, which is very different from other two games.

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Game Contents

Selection Of Game Components While thinking about what element of the circular economy should be put in the game, two criteria must be considered: Firstly, the selected elements should be suitable for beginners to learn the circular economy concepts, so advanced knowledge should not be put in.

Secondly, the element should be able to adapt to a framework which could be applied in some sort of games. For example, it could be possible to turn some of the processes in the circular economy into the path in a board game, or to make a battle game with some basic concepts of the circular economy and the linear economy.

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From previous research, some of the circular economy concepts are selected for seeking the possibilities of adapting concepts to game structures. A diagram from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s website is about the industrial system of both biological and technical materials in a circular economy model. As

product manufacturer, the retailer and the user are as stakeholders in the system and they are connected in circles of maintain, reuse, refurbish and recycle.

This diagram is considered to be the general blueprint of the circular economy concepts so there is an opportunity to make it into a game for university students to learn the concept.

Designers are focusing on how to use design as a tool to accelerate the process of shifting from the linear economy to a circular economy. By discussing the role of design, a diagram is made to indicate how to apply design strategies in every stage of a circular economy model. The diagram could be used to develop a learning toolkit which encourages design students to think actively about what they can do to help the stakeholders to adapt in the circular economy. From doing brainstorming in groups, students would be likely to come up with innovative and valuable ideas. The entire system could be built gradually based on the concept of design for a circular economy, and the objective of using this toolkit would be to achieve a closed loop of one product.

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A diagram produced by The Great Recovery shows the help shifting to the circular economy. Information in this diagram could be used to design a set of toolkit cards, to behaviours. Students can think from different perspectives and cooperate with others in a role-play game, so they can have a general picture about how stakeholders play their roles in the entire system. Case studies can be done according to the structure so students can analysis a successful business model of the circular economy to investigate its key features. Also, a comparison between a circular economy business model and a traditional business model would be made to help students to have a better circular economy.

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Another diagram shows the relationships between the key stakeholders in a circular economy, which are the corporations, the regions and the emerging innovators. A role-play game could possibly be made based on this diagram, so players can support or compete with others while building the circular economy system in game. Many companies are seeking for opportunities to adapt into a circular economy, and they are also interested in the economical effects of the new business model. The game can be used as a toolkit to help businesses

TEST INNOVATION AND ENABLE SCALE

PROVIDE EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES & SOLUTION

together with the government and innovators.

chosen to be the main content of the educational game since it shows the most comprehensive and professional framework of the concept. Each term in this diagram should be designed as one component in the game and the relationships between them should be indicated clearly by merging with a suitable game structure in order to achieve the ideal learning outcome.

NEW MARKETS & ENABLING POLICY

HELP UNDERSTAND BUSINESS NEEDS

NEW MARKETS & ENABLING POLICY

HELP UNDERSTAND BUSINESS NEEDS

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"What circular economy element could

There are various concepts and principles in the circular economy, and it is impossible to present them all in a game. A learning process always starts from simple and obvious facts to complex and profound theories, and the survey results showed that most of the target population has no knowledge step for them to learn the idea should start with learning the basic knowledge.

From the diagram it is clear that the recycling process is the biggest circle of technical nutrients in a circular economy model. Recycling has been a common practice for most of human history and it is mainly about changing recyclable wastes into new products to reduce the use of fresh raw materials and also the energy consumption.

Apart from recycling, there are more approaches in saving raw materials at higher levels, for instance, to reuse, refurbish and maintain the product

instead of recycle the materials directly at the end of the product’s life. It would their understanding of recycling as their starting point in learning circular economy concepts. On the other hand, the bio extraction process is shown as the biggest circle of the biological nutrients in the diagram, which is an eco-friendly method in dealing with post consumption biological products.

Students could learn how materials learning the bio extraction knowledge In conclusion, the learning process of the circular economy should be from elementary knowledge to advanced skills. Studying the recycling of technical materials and the bio extraction of biological materials at the would be suitable for beginners to learn the subject.

The Natural Ecosystem The circular economy model is believed to be inspired by the natural ecosystem.

The circular economy is aiming to design out waste as nature does not create maintenance, reuse, remanufacture and recycle, just like trees return to the soil through a series of biological degradations in a natural ecosystem. The idea we can we should think about not only what is the right thing to do, but also what is the best way to do it.

According to the Cradle to Cradle approach, businesses should look at their materials can be phased out. Also, the management of the product lifecycle should be improved to track and take back the materials at the end of use. The objective of Cradle to Cradle is to make people feel good about their consumption while no materials are over wasted.

In the natural ecosystem, there are big circles and small circles. A big circle is like a food chain, from microorganism to plants, to animals. Animal at the top of a food chain will become nutrients for the soil at the end of its life, so a new circle could start again (nitrogen cycle). Small cycles exist everywhere, for example, nutrients back to the surrounding soil to provide food for future generations.

The concepts of food chain and circulation of the natural ecosystem are easy to understand for university students, so there is an opportunity to combine these concepts with circular economy concepts in communicating the idea through a game. To achieve this goal, examples are needed about materials or products that

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Views of Experts

unusual thing to use in a university educational context. I would be intrigued by how your game introduces circular economy concepts to students, and it - would everyone learn the same things, or would different players gain knowledge about different concepts? How many 'levels' of knowledge / detail times? is not explicitly about the circular economy, but about more sustainable product design in general.

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In my opinion, I think an educational game would be good to stimulate the students to learn more about the concepts.

I would expect students to become interested in the subject to explore more about the topic. From playing the game, students should be able to get a general picture of what the circular economy is.

E-mail interview

In person interview

Designer, Developer The Design With Intent Toolkit

Lecturer in Design for Sustainability Brunel University

'everything', or do you want the toolkit to remain useful for as long as possible? There are questions around whether the toolkit should be a library which remains on the designer's which can be used in different ways, e.g. if someone wanted to use the toolkit as a way of categorising existing ideas as well as creating new ones.

What do you think is the biggest barrier in designing an educational toolkit?

The biggest issue, if not exactly a barrier, that I found through developing my toolkit was the tension between a toolkit which offers 'answers' directly, and one which helps designers/ to make a toolkit into a 'textbook' that outlines 'everything you need to know' while still different things.

About Game Design ...

In your opinion, what elements should be put in the game?

I think the general principles of the circular economy should be introduced in the game. Also, you can use some examples to explain what the ideas really are. Since in the circular economy there are several stakeholders involved like the company, the users, the producers and so on, maybe you can develop a role play game which players can see what their roles have to do to really make a effective circular economy model.

E-mail interview

In person interview

Designer, Developer The Design With Intent Toolkit

Lecturer in Design for Sustainability Brunel University 64

- Evaluative Research Game Version 1 - 4

6 DEVELOPMENT

Evaluative Research A series of evaluative research were done with target users during the product design process. The only approach to test the playability and game logic is by playing it with potential users. User feedback can express in different ways such as body language, facial expressions and also by making

The Game - Version 1 game. The rule of the game is similar with a classic card game named of all their cards. The game content is focused on recycling processes of four recyclables in both the biological cycle and the technological cycle. While playing the game, four recycling processes should be built sequentially. The sequences of cards are indicated with different colours and the card Recycle can be used freely for building any sequence.

Start with a card game ...

The game is for 2-4 players, so the designer herself and one target user played the card game two times in one hour to test and evaluate it. The chosen target user was Jerry Liu, a master degree student studying knowledge. “There is no competition in this game and it is all depending on luck to win. Also, It seems too easy for university students to play.”

Jerry said after playing the game. Jerry also claimed that he did not learn much about circular economy concepts from playing this game because “I only need to focus on card colours while making the right sequence, I do not need to read the contents at all.” In conclusion, the overall assessment of the card game is very low.

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The Game - Version 2 The second version of the educational game was a board game which refers to the classic board game Monopoly. By changing from a card game to a more complex board game, the game could contain more playable components such as cards and tokens. In this board game, every player was represented by a truck which traveled around the board. The objective of this game was to be the richest player and to make other players become bankrupts. To achieve the goal, players need to buy recyclable wastes with play money and use these recycle wastes to make recycled products in order to earn more money back. Props Cards and Skills Cards were designed to add more fun and excitement to the gameplay.

Key concepts of circular economy were printed in some grids on the board representing good or bad events according to the concept’s original meaning. For example, players could get $1000 when landing on Design Out Waste, but lose $1000 when landing on Use Fossil Fuel. An instruction sheet was made for this game to explain its complicated rules to players.

This game was suitable for 2-4 players and four participants helped to evaluate the game: Lily Cai, Jerry Liu, Tacy Tang and Rili Liu. All of them have different levels of knowledge of sustainable design or sustainable development and playing and participants said they all enjoyed playing the game. “The game is well designed and it is really fun to play. More importantly, all of us learnt those four upcycling processes by playing the game.” Said Lily Cai. Although this board game was already very playable and also had good educational effect, improvements could still be made in many aspects such as adding more

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The Game - Version 3 Several considerable changes were made in the third version of the game.

The board shape changed from square to round, which represents the circular economy. The concept “play money� was canceled so players can take the ownership of spaces by paying recyclable wastes tokens directly.

In other words, tokens can be used as the currency instead of the play money. Comparing to the last version, more circular economy key words were added on the board including Take, Make, Dispose and Upcycling.

Jerry Liu and Rili Liu, two postgraduate students with fundamental knowledge of sustainable development, tested this version of the game.

Their feedbacks were mainly negative because the game was almost impossible to win according to its rules. Also, the playability and learning outcome of this version were relatively low. Generally speaking, this version was a transition between the last version and the next version of the game.

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The Game - Version 4 carefully designed based on analysis of previous evaluative research and user circulations in circular economy and this shape also allowed a larger area in each space on the board. Unlike the previous versions, there was only very little information on the board: the Recycle Space icons, Upcycling icons, Chance Card icons and the Winning Zone area. The contents and structure of the board would always change according to how players place their tokens and it allowed the players to make their own decisions while playing so they could be more active and motivated. As an upgraded version, the objective of this game was more sense Wining Zone by building upcycling processes of four kinds of recyclable wastes.

Key principles and concepts were printed on Chance Cards and each of them represented a random event. For example, players can “Get all dropped items” by using the Recycle card. The meaning of the Recycle card in game is based on its original sense in reality, so players could learn circular economy concepts in this game without realising the learning process. By using recyclable wastes tokens as the currency either to take the ownership of spaces or to make deals, participants can quickly keep in mind that “recyclable wastes are valuable”. The Upcycling Centres were designed for players to arrange their upcycling processes so they would be more likely to remember the contents.

Jerry Liu, Rili Liu, Lily Cai and Tacy Tang participated in evaluating this version.

These participants all experienced previous versions of the game so their opinions would be extremely valuable and credible. After playing for 2 hours, problems were slow because four tokens had to be collected for level-up so the designer decided to reduce it to three tokens for upgrading instead of four. Also, other adjustments about the rules and the layout were made after the evaluation to improve the overall performance. Comments about this version of game were given by participants: “This version is much more mature than previous ones I played before. I can tell that everybody enjoyed playing it.” Jerry Liu said. “I have to say the game works, I did learn something I didn’t know before from playing it.” Stated by Tacy Tang.

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7 DELIVERABLE -

The Final Version Logo Design Competitive Testing Collaborative Practices

The Final Version ...

Introduction produced aiming to achieve design objectives. Comparing with the previous version, some of the Chance Card contents were changed, removed from the board to accelerate the gameplay process. Several accessorial components were added to make the game more complete such as the Card Base and the Truck.

In order to do the card sorting and competitive testing between this educational game and traditional learning methods, this version of the game should be tested with potential users. Lina Guo, Yulun Ting, Yuanfei Wang and Tacy Tang were chosen to be the participants since they are all university students and have knowledge about sustainable design. Also, none of them had experience playing previous versions of this game except Tacy. A pre-test and a post-test were designed for testing user knowledge before and after playing the game, so the learning outcome could be critically analysed and the data could be useful in competitive testing as well. Details about the tests will be discussed later in competitive testing paragraphs. Tacy got the highest grade in the pre-test before playing the game and she also shown her experience by leading the whole group while playing. The evaluative testing of the gameplay lasted about 1.5 hours and it ended with Tacy as the winner. “I think I won because I have more circular economy knowledge than other players.” Tacy claimed. “I was confused when I was doing the quiz before the game, but now I think I know all the answers.” Stated Yuanfei. Lina also commented about the game: “I like this game because it is unique, educational and fun. I would like to play it again and I really want to win.”

It is worth well to emphasise that all participants got a better score in the post-test after playing the game. Therefore, It is shown clearly from all evaluative research that both the playability and usability of

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Whenever you land on an unowned space on the board, you may take the ownership of the space by taking one of your tokens from your truck and putting it in that space with its recyclable wastes side up.

Instructions winning zone through getting a full collection of tokens in the upcycling centre.

The equipment consists of a board, a dice, a card base, 4 coloured trucks, 4 coloured upcycling centre boards, 64x4 coloured double sided tokens and 80 chance cards.

Place the board on a table and put all chance cards face down on represent him or her while travelling around the board. Each player is given 96 tokens in the same colour as the chosen truck. At the start, all tokens are put on their allotted spaces on the truck on the upcycling centre board.

The player holding the green truck starts. Place your truck on the space marked "GO", then throw the dice and move your truck the number of spaces indicated by the dice. After you have completed your move, the turn passes to the left. Depending on the space your truck reaches, you may be entitled to take ownership of a recycle space or be obliged to give out tokens, or draw a chance card.

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Whenever you have collected 3 recyclable wastes of one kind from other players in your upcycling centre, you may turn over all your tokens of the same kind on the board to their upcycled products sides up. You may start to collect upcycled products tokens from the next round.

When you land on a space that is owned by another player, the owner collects 1 token from you of same kind as his/her token on that space.

Every token can be used with both its sides.

After you collect 3 upcycled products in your upcycling centre, you are entitled to put one of your own upcycled products of the same kind onto the winning zone. In the same round, all your tokens of this product on board have to be removed back to your truck and you will stop collecting this kind of token for the rest of the game. Keep following this process until you reach the star in the winning zone.

When you land on either of these spaces, take the top chance card from the card base indicated. Remember, you cannot hold more than 3 cards in your hand and must drop all excess cards that you don’t want. Your chance cards must be used at the beginning of your turn, before you throw the dice. When a player uses one card on you, you can confront him/her immediately using your own cards. Chance cards should always be kept shielded from other players.

The player in orange has the full collection in his upcycling centre so he can reach the star in the winning zone on board to win the game.

(As shown below)

The card base holds all chance cards and used cards. Also, all dropped

Tokens are divided into two categories as shown below:

While playing, the truck pattern stands for the truck and holds all of your tokens. The upcycling centre holds your collected tokens from other players (recyclable wastes and upcycled products) on their allotted spaces. Remember, your own tokens are not allowed to be in your own upcycling centre.

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The Chance Cards The Chance Cards are divided into two categories: the green cards and the red of the circular economy while the red ones represent problems in the linear economy. the green cards, and to penalise other are printed at the back sides of all cards, so students can learn relevant knowledge about the keywords by scanning codes.

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Scan QR Codes

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Logo Design

The shape represents the board in the game which means the to be the name of the game, because it sounds more like a game than "Close the Loop" or "Circular Economy".

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The Logo

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Views of Experts

"Could you give me some

Maybe waste streams with multiple or unexpected products, for example, food waste into electricity and is an important waste stream, or cartons separated into constituent parts. I think cartons are good to include as raises issues about products make from composite materials and may provoke discussion about how best to reprocess them.

E-mail interview

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recycling materials, but you don’t an example related to product service system innovation which is very important. For example, there are business models which you don’t buy a product but you buy the function delivered by the product. Companies are economically interested in adapting the circular economy concepts. Customers only buy the service including everything like energy, maintains and collection at the end of the contract. I think it is important to explain this concept.

You may also want to think about how to change peoples’ behaviour by this game, because in

I think you can write some descriptive texts on the your chance cards to help people learn these concepts and you may also want to show different aspects about the circular economy instead of only the recycling part. You can have a look on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s websites to see some nice diagrams and to explore the circles and I think it could be useful to show the circle and the technical circle as the path for the board game so players can follow it.

In person interview Lecturer in Design for Sustainability Brunel University 82

polyester tent. It might be upcycling for value which you can get more value out of it, but here is your challenge: what will you do with your old tents? You cannot call it upcycling if you can’t keep using the material easily, and even to improve it. So I will put a question mark on the upcycling part a bit. The term upcycling is not only about the value, but also about the purity and quality of the material and how much it could continuously be used. The corn wastes turning to green fuel is okay, but you have lost the material, you turn the classic one, as you can always get gold to the top purity again.

Actually I have been involved in a EU project for two years trying to do a game to explain Cradle to Cradle concepts, but it turned out it did not work. I think the reason it failed is there were too many instructions so people don’t get what to do very quickly. Also, there was too much to learn so people don’t get in to it very much. A lot of effort went into it but it was quite disappointing. So one of the big thing in a game is that you have to be able to show that people are enjoy in it. You said your game is based on the structure of the Monopoly, which originally designed to illustrate a different money system. It is interesting because just like I said money equals stuff, and it is all about accumulation. You don’t have to go all the way back to the recycling of materials, you can have a look at maintains, reuse, remanufacture, all these things are great circular economy things. You should think in system, for a bigger picture, for a longer learn from the living system. A lot of people are trying to something like this in their area, because if you can get it right it could be an interesting business, and it could be very helpful to this whole change of mind.

In person interview Head of Innovation, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation 83

the game to make it a 'circular economy' game...perhaps it sits best with 'recycling' at the moment. The product Experts' Comments

(e.g. what happens to the cellulose insulation?). Also, is it true to say that crumb rubber is 'upcycled' into asphalt rubber? Sounds more like reusing a problematic material than a consideration of circularity. Two of us

The game doesn't consider economics in any way, nor energy or employment. Instead the focus is purely

I agree with the game's author that board games can be an excellent vehicle to learn from. We feel this game could be developed into a useful game about recycling with very little work, but it would need a rethink - in particular the centralisation of economics and a consideration of the true circularity of materials - to become a circular economy game.

Feedback via e-mail Education Programme Manager The Ellen MacArthur Foundation 84

Competitive Testing The objective of the competitive testing was to compare the learning outcome between studying through playing the game and learning through reading materials. In the competitive test, four people were learning through playing the game while the other two participants were studying the reading material.

A pre-test and a post-test were designed for testing user knowledge before and after playing the game, so the learning outcome could be critically analysed and the data could be used in competitive testing.

Participants of the game group were Lina Guo, Yulun Ting, Yuanfei Wang and Tacy Tang. After taking the pre-test at the beginning, their roles were to hours and it ended with Tacy as the winner.

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Yu Liu and Qinyi Chen were participanted the competitive testing as the members of the reading group. They are postgraduate students and they all have learnt sustainable development before. Yu and Qinyi were asked to learn the reading material by themselves after taking the quiz. They were given the reading material and the time limit for studying was 1.5 hours. The 1600 words reading material was part of the literature review section from the dissertation written by the designer. Concepts about the circular economy and upcycling were described clearly in paragraphs, and four examples of recycling process were explained as well.

Card Sorting Card sorting was used as the form of pre-testing and post-testing at the competitive testing stage to test user knowledge. Each participant was given 18 cards with circular economy key words, and the task was to classify these cards in groups or to indicate relationships between them by the 18 cards consisted of four recyclable wastes and their upcycled products; differences between a circular economy and a linear economy; and the use of renewable and non-renewable resources.

The hypothesis of this test was: The participant will be able to place the cards in right sequences or categories if he/she has knowledge of the circular economy and recycling examples.

Otherwise, the answer will be confusing and pointless. It was an open test and there were no absolute correct answers so participants can get the mark as long as the answer makes sense in the circular economy.

All of the participants agreed that the card sorting was an interesting testing method because it was more like a game rather than a the test and participants were not allowed to communicate with others during the time.

Everyone was thinking hard trying to put every card in the right place, and they were all desired

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Card Examples

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Pre-test & Post-test From the pre-test results, it was shown clearly that all six participants had different degrees of confusion toward the circular economy are indicating ideal answers while red areas are representing wrong answers, and not coloured areas are pointless answers. Most participants averagely got 5 wrong answers 6 ideal answers in this quiz. Participants did not know they would take the same quiz again after playing the game or reading the material so they were not learning with targets while playing the game or reading the material.

All participants were asked to take the post-result to test their learning outcome of the 1.5-hours study. The result showed that the average score of the game group was better than the reading group. Members from the game group showed better understanding of upcycling processes since they have simulated building upcycling processes for many times in the game. Almost all game recyclable wastes and upcycled products while none of the reading group members did. Also, the game group made bigger progress than the reading group in the second quiz: In the test result of the game group, the average number of incorrect answer dropped to 1 while the number of right answers increased dramatically from 6 to 15. Meanwhile, the average number of ideal answers only slightly increased from 6 to 7 in the results of reading group.

Qiyi Chen

Yu Liu 88

Lina Guo

Yulun Ting 89

Tacy Tang The game group played the game for 1.5 hours and they all enjoyed playing and found it exciting. In comparison, the reading group was quiet during the 1.5 hours and the two group members read through the material roughly then started doing other things. A reading group member Qinyi said she used the reading material to check the exam answers she thought it was enough for learning the knowledge. The other member Yu said she has already mastered the knowledge

Yuanfei Wang

short time.

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The competitive research showed that different learning methods not only lead to different learning outcomes but also effect students’ attitude toward learning. During the interview of the participants, people in two groups held converse opinions about circular economy knowledge; the game group members gave mostly positive feedbacks and they thought the circular economy concepts were easy to understand and also fun to learn. In contrast, the reading group members considered the circular economy concepts were not interesting and not easy to learn. Feedbacks collected from both groups are as below: “I could feel myself making progress while taking the second quiz. The gameplay with my group members was a wonderful experience and I hope I could learn every subject by playing games.” Stated by Lina, a member of the game group.

“I have never played an educational game since I grew up and now I

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realise it’s a really natural way to learn. I think the designer should try to apply the game structure in other courses, it would be helpful as well.”

Said by another game group member Yuanfei. “Usually I don't read makes me bored. I admit I didn’t read the material carefully, but I would not do this if I knew there would be a second quiz!” A reading group member Yu said.

In conclusion, the competitive testing between the educational game and the reading material gave similar result to that of the Learning Pyramid.

The educational game is one of the active learning approaches, and it The game allows students to simulate real world scenarios, making every decision themselves, as a tool for practice.

E-waste Recycling + Educational Game

Collabrative Practice Yu Liu is currently working on a design project, which is aiming to relieve the electronic waste problem (especially ICT products like computer and smartphone) according to users’ behaviours. Therefore a study on circular economy in the case of E-waste is necessary. This collaborative practice will help with building an understanding on what will be stakeholders’ roles and possible options for user in this circle. Also, the outcome (an E-waste vision of the interactive board game) could be a useful tool in her experiments.

During the last decade, the technology industry has undergone tremendous changes. Automated products’ shortening life cycles increased the worldwide production of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) especially ICT products, making electronic waste one of the In the framework of electronic product life cycles, there are many methods to handle e-waste: prevention/maintain/service design, reuse, refurbish/remanufacturing, recycle, energy recovery and disposal.

Solutions can be overlaid one by one in the above order. Therefore, best outcome could be achieved when e-waste is dealt within the priority method are different. For example, tablets are designed to be slim, light and portable, but hard to disassemble and repair. Repairing an iPad could in the second-hand market.

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equally in this game.

This game is very similar with the last version of the circular economy game, but the four kinds of recyclable wastes are changed to electronic products. After taking the ownership of a space on the board, you will start to get points when other players land on your space. For example, if someone lands on your space which with a smart phone token and at the same time the dice shows "Reuse", you will get 2 points according to the points sheet. So the dice is considered to be an important component in this version as it could dice illustrates two kinds of information: the dice point and the action to be take.

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The score cards are designed to record players' scores during the gameplay process. Three levels are set in winning the game as 10 points, 15 points and 20 points. can move to the next level which is one step closer to the star in the winning zone. While starting a new level, the player needs to clear all points on the scorecard and to start all over.

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Some new Chance Cards were added for this game version, for example, "second-hand shop" for reuse electronic products and also the "take-back program" to refurbish them.

Currently, e-wastes usually get exported or just being laid in home, so these issues are shown on cards as well.

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8 CONCLUSION - Conclusion - Recommendations

Conclusion At the design research stage, background research about the topic area is presented through an in-depth literature review, including studies of the circular economy principles and examples, current education status, related technologies and game design. Also, a series of case studies related to

and also to test the playability of the game. The evaluative research of the game. Participants were interviewed and asked to share their feelings

have a better understanding of educational toolkits. User research was an

structure and designing relevant game components. At the end of this stage,

criteria of concept evaluation. In this section, several research methodologies were applied, including an online questionnaire survey and image boards.

The survey was focused on investigating user knowledge, user preferences and also their attitudes toward the topic area. Image boards were used as a comprehensive self-checking tool in the entire design process, and simultaneously as visual communication tool to the external world.

they can get from this project and the social meaning of the toolkit was highlighted as well.

observing design opportunities, for example, the Design with Intent Toolkit and PESTLE analysis. Profound analysis related to circular economy concepts section, analyses toward three successful board games were presented, and circular economy concepts were studied from different perspectives. Also, the relationship between the natural ecosystem and the circular economy model was pointed out as one of the inspirations of game design. Expert interviews were organised to get insightful opinions and suggestions from professionals from a circular economy charity, a university tutor of sustainable design opportunity was found as a simulation game of the circular economy which students can learn actively and be engaged in the learning process.

While developing the design concept, evaluative researches with potential users were continuously being conducted. Working prototypes were made

The project deliverables consisted of one engaging educational game and a set of self-learning QR cards. These two could be used together while playing the game, since the QR cards are used as chance cards in game. While the QR cards were being used independently, they would become a self-learning tool which allows students to explore circular economy knowledge actively.

Aimed to test the feasibility of the game design, a competitive test was held to compare the learning outcome between playing the game and reading the material. Participated with six target users divided into two groups, pretesting and post-testing were taken to examine the learning outcome of each individual. Test results showed that students who played the game got better scores and their learning interest was built through the game play. More and some of the expert interviewees also assessed the previous version of the game which was helpful for the design development.

In seeking more possibilities of the design project, a collaborative practice was developed with Yu Liu to investigate opportunities in raising public awareness of reducing e-waste by promoting circular economy concepts requirements. This practice is considered to be the beginning of the future development of this project.

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Recommendations Further steps to be carried out for this design project consist of the competitive test and a website supporting the toolkit.

There were criticisms toward the upcycling terms of the game from the expert interviews. According to experts’ opinions, upcycling is hard to all upcycling terms by other circular economy terms like reuse, refurbish, remanufacture and recycle. As the core valuable component of the toolkit, the chance cards could be redesigned to consist of more information. and framework of the prototype. Moreover, the game version designed for learning e-waste recycling could be developed more in the future.

Due to the limitation of time, the competitive testing of this project was done with a group of only six participants. It would be valuable if a well-organised competitive test could be conducted by an authoritative organisation with the target users. Therefore, the test result could be considered more professional and convincing. Also, the future competitive testing could be focused on comparing the game with other passive learning methods apart from reading the material, such as a lecture.

Learning detailed circular economy concepts through scanning QR codes is one of the key functions of the educational toolkit. Existing web links were used to generate the QR codes in this project, and these web links belong to different websites and there is no connection between them.

A Wikipedia-like website could be built to integrate relevant sources and links which allows students to learn the idea in a system.

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9 REFERENCES & APPENDICES

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Appendices

1.http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies/cms608-game-design-fall-2010/index.htm 2.http://www.creativeroots.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ copenhagen_game1.jpg 3.http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-9020_7-57590074-222/eightiphone-game-styles-that-would-rock-with-a-controller/

The online survey link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RPLJHCW

4.http://www.hercampus.com/life/academics/4-ways-make5.http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9c/9f/3f/9c9f3f2ab 859c2d7c65dd6f6b88f49c4.jpg 6. http://www.gvsu.edu/art/facilities-graphic-design-36.htm

8.http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2290289/scotlandjoins-ellen-macarthurs-circular-economy-drive 9.http://omarel.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/code_ muncher_motek.jpeg 10. http://in-learning.ist.utl.pt/images/M12/ale.jpg 11.http://connectwithyourteens.net/new-sifteo-cubes-interactiveeducational-gaming-better-than-ever/ 12.http://thetuckerbunch.typepad.com/just_another_day_in_ parad/2013/05/some-of-our-favorite-board-games.html 13. http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/?icpg=gy_ ee8b&cpg=pi 14. http://www.lovethispic.com/image/29192/board-gameorganization 15.http://extremecouponingmom.ca/free-printable-phineas-andferb-board-game/ 16.http://www.multitestingmommy.com/2013/05/speedeebeeeducational-game-for-kids-8.html

1. Which category below includes your age?

- 18-22 -- 2 - 22-26 -- 50 - 27 or older -- 10 2. Do you know what is the concept of Circular Economy?

- Yes -- 9 - Not quite sure -- 39 - No --14 Economy(CE) class, which learning method do you prefer?

(Multiple choices) - Listen to the lecture and take notes.

-- 18 - Play a tabletop game to simulates the CE model. -- 47 - Read the textbook and ask questions. -- 6 - Read diagrams and data to gain the knowledge. --24 4. According to your learning experience, please choose at -

5. What is your favorite kind of tabletop game?

- Purely intellectual game (Chess etc.)

-- 6 - Simulation games (Monopoly etc.)

-- 19 - Card games (Poker, Uno etc.)

-- 14 - Tabletop RPG (Dungeons & Dragons etc.)

-- 22 development"?

- When I was a child. -- 10 - In high school. -- 30 - In university. -- 20 - I haven't learned it. -- 1 7. Have you ever scanned a QR code with a smart phone?

- Yes. -- 55 - I don't know how to do it. -- 3 - I don't use a smart phone.

-- 0 - No. -- 3

Flash cards in learning vocabularies.

-- 18 Scrabble game in learning vocabularies.

-- 18 Experiments in learning chemical reactions.

-- 28 Build a catapult model to learn the leverage.

-- 13 Play typing game to learn touch typing.

-- 18 Making prototypes while designing a product.

-- 44 Play three-legged race to learn team working.

-- 19

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