JumpStart Adventures 5th Grade: Jo Hammet, Kid Detective facts for kids

JumpStart Adventures 5th Grade: Jo Hammet, Kid Detective is an exciting educational and adventure for your computer. It's part of the popular JumpStart series. Knowledge Adventure created this game in 1997, especially for students in fifth grade.

In this game, you get to play as Jo Hammet, a super-smart kid detective. Your mission is to solve mysteries and learn cool stuff along the way!

What's the Story?

The game takes place in a make-believe city called Hooverville. A sneaky bad guy named Dr. X is causing trouble. He's planning to blow up factories and power plants! Why? Because he's upset that his money for research was cut.

As Jo Hammet, you need to stop Dr. X's evil plans. While you play, you'll learn about many different school subjects. These include art history, geography, math, language, science, and even US History. It's an adventure where learning is the key to saving the day!

How Do You Play?

Your adventure is split into six main missions. Each mission involves stopping Dr. X from sabotaging a different place in Hooverville.

Starting at the Museum

Every mission begins at the Hooverville Museum of Art and Geography. Here, you'll meet a talking lab rat named B.F. Skinny. He gives Jo a crossword puzzle. The clues for the crossword are hidden in the museum's exhibits.

You'll help Jo explore the museum to find the answers. Once the crossword is finished, you unscramble some special letters. These letters will tell you the secret address of the next sabotaged site!

The museum rooms teach you about different topics like:

• Geography
• Renaissance and Baroque art
• Symbolist, Romantic, Rococo, Realist, and Pre-Raphaelite art
• Impressionist art
• Modern art and Photography

Unlocking Doors with Math

When Jo gets to a sabotaged site, the door is always locked. These locks are shaped like triangles made of smaller triangles. Each small triangle has a math problem on its sides. You'll solve problems involving adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing numbers.

After solving all the problems, you need to turn and move the pieces. The goal is to make sure that any touching sides have numbers that are equal. You'll need to pick two locks for each mission.

Grammar Puzzles

Jo has special glasses that let her read the thoughts of Dr. X's henchmen. This part of the game is like a grammar puzzle. You need to fill in missing words in their thoughts. You'll choose the correct word based on its part of speech, like a noun or a verb.

Once you fill in all the words, Jo writes down a list of items she needs. These items will help her safely reach the bomb. Then, Jo uses her skateboard to search all over Hooverville for these important things.

Escaping the Dungeon

Sometimes, as you travel around Hooverville, you'll play a side-scrolling skateboard mini-game. The main goal is to avoid getting caught by Dr. X's henchmen. If they catch you, Jo gets thrown into a dungeon!

To escape, you have to stack boxes in a special way. This puzzle is based on the rules of the Tower of Hanoi. You need to stack the boxes correctly to reach a broken window and get out.

Mixing Drinks at the Juice Bar

Jo visits her friend Bernie at the Squishy Juice Bar. Bernie is actually a newspaper reporter working undercover as a bartender! He'll give Jo one of the items she needs. But first, you have to help him mix some drinks.

You'll get a recipe to follow and six beakers of different sizes. Each beaker has a fraction written on it. You must use these beakers to measure the correct amount of each juice for the recipe. On harder levels, you also have to pour the right fraction of mixed drinks for customers.

Junk Puzzles at Jimmy's Junkyard

At the edge of town, there's a junkyard run by a mysterious person called Jimmy "the Shadow." He'll give Jo another item she needs. But first, you have to help him compact pieces of junk.

This activity is like a tangram puzzle. You'll get seven tangram pieces. Your job is to arrange these pieces to create a specific shape shown in a diagram.

Exploring the Mine Shaft

The Boulder Canyon Mine Shaft is managed by Maggie Mead, a ranger who studies old artifacts. She's afraid of the dark, so she asks Jo to go into the mine for her. In exchange, she'll give Jo an item.

The mine has three levels, and Maggie needs one artifact from each. The top level has items from colonial America and the American Revolution. The middle level contains artifacts from Native American history. The bottom level has items related to geology and Earth science.

Disarming the Bomb

Once Jo has collected all the necessary items, she returns to the sabotaged site. Now it's time to safely disarm the bomb! In this activity, you guide a small robot around a circuit. The circuit is connected to several batteries, each with a different decimal number.

Your goal is to turn batteries on and off so that their total sum equals a target number shown on the screen. Watch out! There are also enemy robots chasing you. If they touch your robot, the bomb will explode, and you'll have to start over.

After you successfully disarm the bomb, Jo goes back to the museum for a new crossword. This starts the next mission! At the end of the very last mission, Jo learns that Dr. X plans to blow up the Boulder Canyon Dam. This dam is like the real Hoover Dam and would destroy all of Hooverville! Jo manages to save the city just in time, but Dr. X mysteriously disappears.