DIY.org: Gamification for Makers

Recently I discovered DIY.org, a kind of social network for kids that love to make things (DIY = Do It Yourself). DIY.org has been conceptualized to help those kids and its parents to enjoy the DIY experience, and makes use of gamification to engage its users and help them to discover new things to make.

diyHomeWhy do I like DIY.org so much:

  • It’s been designed for kids, so parents has to allow permission to their kids to register DIY.org
  • It’s for makers, and all the platform is oriented to discover new skills to learn
  • It uses gamification to help kids discover new skills and engage them to the platform and also to the DIY movement

How DIY.org uses Gamification

diySkillsBadges are the first Game Mechanic that we find when entering DIY.org, because learning new skills gives you new badges. And because everything is based on skills, almost every action you can do on the platform, focuses you to earn new badges. When learning a new skill, DIY.org presents you several challenges (usually 7-14 challenges), and you need to do at least 3 challenges to earn the badge.

If you want to have a deeper knowledge on a specific skill, you can do more challenges, but reducing the number of challenges to 3, makes it easier for kids to earn their first skills, engaging them with the dynamics of developing new skills.

If you don’t like the main skills proposed by the platform, you can also explore other kind of challenges, that are proposed by other members in the platform and categorized in categories such as Minecraft, Lego, Rocket, Stop Motion, etc. It really surprises me (for the good) to discover that there are a lot of interesting challenges related to a computer videogame such as Minecraft.

Another game mechanic used in DIY.org is the progress bar. It has been simplified to a 3 steps process, that encourages kids to get permission from their parents, make projects and earn skills and share them with their friends.

diySteps

I’m sure we will hear and read a lot about DIY.org in the following months, specially when the DIY movement is going mainstream as Chris Anderson states in his latest book.