Color Mixer Scenario – SMALLab Teacher Guide
Grade Levels: K - 12
Learning Goals: Learn how the primary colors mix together as emitted additive colors. Learn how to work
collaboratively to understand the interactions of additive colors.
Duration: One day
Additional Materials: none
How is this embodied and/or socio-collaborative? The height of the wands corresponds to the magnitude of
a hue or color. Students raise the wands up and down for R, G, B color in Level 1, then must work together to
mix and create secondary colors in Level 2. As the game becomes more challenging in Level 3, the height of
the wand maps to the intensity of the color, higher = more. It is socio-collaborative because one student
cannot mix all three colors, three must work together in a time constraint to create the final product in the
center. Success requires communication.
Common Core Standards:
Science: PS4 Waves and their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer - PS4B Electromagnetic
Radiation
Crosscutting Concepts: Patterns; Cause and effect: Mechanism and explanation; Scale, proportion, and
quantity.
Mathematics: 3,4,5 Number and Operations-Fractions; 3.4.5 Measurement and Data; 3,4,5,6,7,8, HS
Modeling-formulating a problem, computing interpreting and validating a model.
Electromagnetic spectrum and visible light, the relationship of wavelength to color.
Section
Introduction
Action
Familiarize students with
the tracking system and
interface.
Teacher
“Today we are going to work together to make the primary
colors mix together in an additive manner. The colors are mixed
in this central target area, which I will call the mixing area.”
Pick three students to stand in the interactive space. Each wand
is related to a color: red, green & blue. “Now raise your wands
up and down to learn what your color is. One at a time you
should hold your wand up high. You can see in the mixing area
what your color is.”
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Have the students call out what color they represent. Once they
determine which color they control, have them stand in the
smaller circle that corresponds to their color within the
interactive space.
The Play-Practice first
The large circle in the center is composed of two rings. In the
outer ring you see the color that is currently being made by the
wands. If all wands are down low, it will be black.
Let’s explore what happens as you vary which wand is raised?
When all wands are raised, the color is? ( white)
In the central target mixing area you see the color that needs to
be matched. This represents the RGB additive color model in
which red, green, and blue light is added together in various
ways to reproduce a spectrum of colors.
Level 1
Single Primary Colors
Controls:
R = reset
Space = play
Ctrl -I= information
Ctrl-C = config panel
Switch levels by pressing
1, 2, 3 respectively.
In Level 1, single primary colors of red, green or blue will appear
in the center spotlight. Players take turns raising and lowering
their wands individually to match the target. Your color is either
on or off (binary).
The central mixing circle expands out and serves as a timer.
When the expanding central mixing area hits the outer ring the
time to match as elapsed. Here’s what makes it hard! Every
time you get a match incorrect the outer ring thickens or
expands. This means that the time you have during play to
match a central mixing color is decreased.
Remember the thicker the outer ring, the less time to match the
inner circle. This means your mistakes add up to make the game
harder as you progress. Thus, the game can move quite fast, but
it is lively and fun and should not be stressful.
There are three levels in this game and each one moves up in
complexity.
The endnote contains more information on additive or emitted
colors.
Level 1 ends after you get 25 points (correct items).
Level 2 ends after 55 more points (80 points cumulative).
You can manually switch between levels by pressing [1], [2], and
[3] keyboard keys respectively.
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Level 2
Mixing Colors
In level 2, the students must work together to match the color.
Three must be active (wands held high) so it is a pairing of
colors that makes the central mixed color appear. These mixed
colors are called the “secondary colors.” For example, if the
central mixing color is yellow, then the green and red wands
must be raised simultaneously, while the wand representing
blue stays low.
Green and Red = yellow
Red and Blue = magenta or fuchsia
Blue and Green = cyan or aqua
Level 3
Levels of Intensity
Note: Press Ctrl-C to make
adjustments in the
configuration panel –
Height of the players –
Smaller or Taller
In Level 3, each wand is linked to activate three levels of
intensity corresponding to saturation. This is the intensity of the
color. When a wand is held low there is no color. When held at
the midpoint it activates moderate color intensity – so you can
get a grey color – if all three wands were raised half way. And,
when the wands are at the highest level, the colors are at full
intensity.
This requires some trial and error, but eventually the students
will figure it out and have fun cycling through the game.
This game has no set end based on points. It stops after the
timer has been run out and then resets.
Game created by Katie Salen and the Institute of Play in NYC, NY.
Here is how “additive color” from projected or emitted surfaces works: The colored pixels do not overlap on the screen, but when
viewed from a certain distance, the light from the pixels diffuses to overlap on the retina. The way the human eye and the brain
perceive color is taken advantage of here. Results obtained when mixing additive colors are often counterintuitive for people
accustomed to the more common “subtractive” system of pigments, dyes, inks and other substances which present color to the eye
by reflection rather than emission.
In subtractive color systems green is a combination of yellow and blue; however, in additive color, red + green = yellow and no
simple combination will yield green. Additive color is a result of the way the human eye detects color, and is not a property of light.
A four step flow chart below from Wikipedia helps to show how this works:
Light source:
Medium wavelengths, or green, and long wavelengths, or red, radiate from two different projectors.
Projection screen:
Both the medium and long wavelengths reflect off of a spot on the screen.
Retina:
The medium and long wavelengths activate M and L cones on a spot on the retina.
Brain:
The brain interprets the equal amounts of medium and long signal as yellow.
Last Updated 8/21/12
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