Who can forget the incredibly simple, yet addictive and sometimes downright infuriating Flappy Bird? But when the developer decided to take down the app in 2013, as he felt overwhelmed by the fame, every fan was shell shocked and panicked, to say the least.
But a devastated fan, Fawn Qiu, was insistent on playing the game, as she looked for an out of the box solution for the “crisis”.
In 2013, soon after the game was about to be taken down, Qiu decided to create a real-life version of the game, a version that cannot be taken away from her this easily.
Using simple yet ingenious engineering, she created a flappy bird model which is now using to teach young students about problem solving and the fascinating aspects of engineering.
Talking about the reaction of people when she first devised the game, she commented,
“So a few of my friends were also pretty addicted to the game, and I invited them to play as well. And they told me that it was just as infuriating as the original game.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8YkZ3U2y94
After the “positive” feedback, she was encouraged to upload a demo video of her project on Youtube. Soon enough the project went viral and had over two million views in a span of just a few days. It was at this moment she realised that the project could be used in a larger perspective,
“A lot of people wanted to make it their own or asked me how it was made. So this kind of confirmed my idea that through a creative project, we can teach people about engineering.”
Now that she is making big bucks on YouTube, she is using the money to help students learn more about programming and engineering. And with no surprise, many of her students did make variants of this Flappy Bird box game, which has inspired her to create more and more easy to follow DIY projects. Consequently, and she has established her very own lab for this purpose.
She added on,
“Since I didn’t find anything, I decided to make something on my own. I started with paper and fabric. And I prototyped a project where students can create a light-up creature using fabric and googly eyes. They were all helping each other in classrooms and were laughing and discussing the project. And most importantly, they were able to insert their own creativity into the project.”
Qiu has now become famous for creating easy to understand and relatively cheap engineering kits using commonplace and simple materials.
You can find out more from her speech on TED and enjoy some of her other projects at the Quilab page.
What are your thoughts on this innovative idea? Comment below!
