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Gizmos & Gadgets! facts for kids
| Super Solvers: Gizmos & Gadgets | |
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Cover art
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| Developer(s) | The Learning Company |
| Publisher(s) | The Learning Company |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS, Macintosh |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Platform Puzzle Racing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Super Solvers: Gizmos & Gadgets is an exciting video game made by The Learning Company. It's designed to teach kids like you (around 7 to 12 years old) about cool science stuff. You'll learn about simple machines, magnets, basic electronics, and different kinds of energy. The game first came out in 1993 for older computers. Later, it was updated to work on Windows 95 and Macintosh computers too. It was a very popular game for a long time!
Contents
What You Do in the Game
The main goal of Gizmos & Gadgets is to win 15 exciting races. You'll race against a character named Morty Maxwell. To win, you need to find vehicle parts. You do this by moving your character, the Super Solver, around a big warehouse. Inside the warehouse, you'll solve puzzles that teach you about physics.
Types of Races
There are 15 races in total. They are split into three groups:
- Five races for cars (automotive).
- Five races for vehicles using alternative energy.
- Five races for aircraft.
The races get harder as you go along. The vehicles you build also become more complex.
Meet the Characters
You'll meet a few important characters in the game:
- Super Solver – This is your character! You control the Super Solver. You move them around the warehouse to collect parts. The game uses your name for this character. In later versions, the Super Solver even has a voice.
- Morty Maxwell – He's the bad guy in the game. Morty is your opponent in all 15 races.
- Cyberchimps – These are Morty's helpers. They hang out in the warehouse. If you bump into a Cyberchimp, they might steal one of your parts! To get your parts back, you can throw bananas at them. This makes them fall asleep and drop anything they've taken.
Exploring the Warehouse
The warehouse where you find parts is like a big maze. It has many levels. To move between levels, you can:
- Be blown up by vents.
- Jump off springboards.
- Bounce on trampolines to go up.
- Walk off a ledge to go down.
The warehouse also has a "front" and a "back" area. The "front" lets you see more of the whole warehouse. Most of the boxes with parts are in the "back." Doors separate these areas. These doors start locked. You must solve a science puzzle to unlock each door. Once a door is unlocked, you can move through it freely. You'll need to unlock many doors to reach all the parts.
What You Learn
As you solve puzzles in Gizmos & Gadgets, you'll learn about many cool science and math ideas.
Science Principles
Here are some of the things you'll learn about:
- Balance – You'll learn how to balance a scale using different weights and distances.
- Electricity – You'll build different types of electric circuits, like series and parallel circuits.
- Energy – You'll match activities to different types of energy. These include chemical, electrical, kinetic, nuclear, potential, light, heat, and mechanical energy.
- Force – You'll figure out how to push objects into a flashing hole. This depends on things like ramps, gravity, and friction.
- Gears – You'll build machines using gears of different sizes.
- Magnetics – You'll create patterns using north and south poles of magnets.
- Machines – You'll build common objects using simple machine parts.
Vehicle Design
When you build vehicles, you'll also learn about what makes a design good, better, or best. For example, you'll discover that a car with a rounded front is more aerodynamic and faster than a flat one. A pointed front is even better for speed!