When I was in high school, we used to while away our long commutes playing Auto-Quartett [1]. It’s a simple game: each of the 32 cards represents one car and its technical specifications (power, weight, speed, age etc). When it’s your turn, you pick a category; the person with the best value on their current card wins the round.
Last weekend, these memories came back to me while birdwatching and mudflat hiking in Friesland, Northern Germany. This is a region that started investing in wind energy early on, building the world’s largest windmill in 1992.
Windmills of different shapes and sizes can be seen everywhere, and I longed to know more about them. When were they built? How much energy did they produce? Were these rare models or ubiquitous ones? How tall were they? How much did they cost?
Putting two and two together, the geek in me now dreams of a Windkraft-Quartett to answer these questions. EWEA, would you produce one with me?
[1] ZEIT on the history of the game; apparently the English version is called Top Trumps
Hi Wiebke,
Thats not a bad idea. Might be a big job though – and Global Wind Day is tomorrow, so it probably won’t be ready in time! We do produce toys and gadgets though – tomorrow around the world people will be recieving Global Wind Day seed packs – see this video to find out what they are – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I–SYcZxgFE&feature=related
I’ll keep you posted.
Hi Wiebke,
You may be interested in the Thiagi group that has a website of games that can be adapted to learn and deepen our understanding about sustainability issues including wind energy!
http://www.thiagi.com/games.html
Also see Balaton Group a group that works on systems and system thinking. It was founded in 1982 by Dennis Meadows and Donella Meadows—co-authors of the ground-breaking book “The Limits to Growth” http://www.balatongroup.org/ I believe they are shortly coming out with a book on sustainability games.
all the best,
Christine
Thanks, Christine!
I believe that Gillian once told me of the Thiagi group – have you used any of their games in your work? And yes, I’m really looking forward to the update of the systems thinking playbook!
Hope all is well,
W.