Polytechnic students kick off new campus tradition with Extreme Innovation Games

Fifteen student groups are vying for votes to help make their invention of a campus-wide game a reality. The Extreme Innovation Games (XI Games) is a new tradition in the College of Technology & Innovation that challenges freshmen to create a game that is innovative, engaging, hands-on and designed for college and campus-wide participation. Inventing and pitching a game is part of the freshman ASU 101 course in the College of Technology & Innovation. 

The interdisciplinary teams have been working for the past two weeks to develop video pitches that are posted on the XI Games website. Text voting starts Nov. 30 and ends Dec. 8, and will determine which game will be played on campus in the spring of 2012.  Winners will be announced at the Late Night Break-feast on the Polytechnic campus on Dec. 9.  Each group is assigned a keyword and votes are cast by texting that keyword to 37607. Voting is open to the public.

“The XI Games embody Polytechnic’s values of inspiring imagination and invention – and having fun while we’re at it,” said Mitzi Montoya, vice provost and dean of ASU’s College of Technology and Innovation. “The students have really taken this project and made it their own. They were given the flexibility of creating games for learning, games for service, games for fun, or any combination of these things. It’s an opportunity for our students to be creative and be the architects of the experience on the Polytechnic campus.” 

After the winners are determined, students will lead the planning of the XI Games in the spring. 

“The faculty and students are excited about establishing this new tradition,” said Montoya. “Many students are already talking about how they hope to influence next year’s freshman class challenge.”