Car builder is an excellent game for the 3rd-9th grade crowd. Its intuitive interface gives students an ideal venue to explore both aerodynamic and mechanical automobile design. With its mechanical section, which includes such small things as transmission design all the way down to tire diameter... It gives the student an excellent insight into the intricacies of drive-train/running gear design. Even the engine design and determining the weight- to-power tradeoff helps with any child’s understanding of the mechanical world around them.
The aerodynamic section an advanced wind-tunnel test that feeds back coefficient of drag - an advanced physics concept that is being introduced to children well before it is required.
Car builder is an excellent game for the 3rd-9th grade crowd. Its intuitive interface gives students an ideal venue to explore both aerodynamic and mechanical automobile design. With its mechanical section, which includes such small things as transmission design all the way down to tire diameter... It gives the student an excellent insight into the intricacies of drive-train/running gear design. Even the engine design and determining the weight- to-power tradeoff helps with any child’s understanding of the mechanical world around them.
The aerodynamic section an advanced wind-tunnel test that feeds back coefficient of drag - an advanced physics concept that is being introduced to children well before it is required. The road test gives information on turning ability, acceleration, wind shutter,
and many other important factors in car design. Overall, I would rate the game play of this game a seven out of ten. For its time, this game had exceptional graphics in multiple colors... and the user-interface is very well constructed, so I would rate this at about an eight out of ten. Now, usability in this type of game is a must have, but with this game's well designed and labeled graphic interface, finding everything is a breeze. From saving/loading a game ("car storage") to swiftly navigating through the program features... this game definitely earns a big fat 10 out of ten.
I really believe that this game is a winner for the technological class-room, and teaches basic concepts in an easy and fun way! You won't be able to pry your student's from this for a minute, and because it was written for DOS, it won't matter what operating system/computer specs you are running, because it will basically work on anything in a current classroom!
