Four MSU grads create their own jobs, interactive learning experiences with Adventure Club Games

A year ago, Adventure Club Games set up shop in East Lansing’s Technology Innovation Center and started working on small projects for Michigan State University staff and departments to which the four founders and MSU grads had connections. This spring, the startup has launched the first known interactive museum exhibit utilizing the Microsoft Kinect platform for the Union Pacific Railroad Museum located in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

 

“It’s pretty exciting,” says ACG co-founder Mike Rossi. “It’s a unique exhibit because when they first approached us, they said they’d heard of Microsoft Kinect and would love to utilize it in their museum.”

 

The ACG team had in fact already discussed their interest in creating games on the Kinect platform, and had never heard of it used in a museum exhibit. To their knowledge, the transcontinental railway game now in use at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum is the first. It allows players to experience what it was to build the First American Transcontinental Railroad by performing such tasks as carrying ties and driving spikes. 

 

“We wanted to make it easily accessible,” says Rossi, “but the thing we’ve seen people do is things like lower their hands all the way down to the floor, even though they don’t have to. People are really getting into to it, and learning how it was done.”

 

AGS has already expanded their workspace in the TIC from a small cubicle into a larger area, and foresee continued growth in the future with new projects already underway.