Last term, the Shirley Boys’ High Social Science Year 10 Extension Class entered a New Zealand Transport Agency Road Safety Game Design Competition. The goal was to design a game that helped New Zealanders engage in Road Safety or an aspect of Road Safety.

The combined class of 61 investigated Road Safety and researched popular games, both modern and traditional. Overall, the standard was very high and a lot of time and effort, as well as class time, had been put in to create, trial and gain feedback before final entries were submitted to the National competition.

One aspect the class focused on was feedback and improvement. Two groups took the opportunity to engage the wider community at last term's School Open Night.

The National competition was judged by NZTA staff and professional game developers, and there were over 1000 entries. It was very pleasing that the Dangerous Drivers App design was given a 'Highly Commended' – a third placing overall.

The judges commented that the Dangerous Drivers app (designed by Niko Clayton-Jones, Zak Cummings, Joel Coleman and Evan Blyth) had:

• Created a very complete concept video – excellent video explanation of the game.
  
• A very detailed explanation and background to the game purpose.
  
• More of a focus on what can be done to improve road safety as opposed to simply focusing on the statistics.
  
• Excellent background research.
  
• A well-documented testing process.
  
• A game that could be fun to play and there was evidence that the team has thought through the structure of the game.
  
• A design that would get players thinking about the road as a shared commons, and needing to be aware of other drivers and the mistakes and bad decisions they might make.
  

Well done to these boys!