STEAM 19 GO [NEW SLIDE] 0:00 In this video we’re going to talk about the game of go, also called baduk or wei- chi. I find this an incredibly important game to put into your curriculum. Even though it may not fit with your benchmarks, there’s so many reasons to add this. We’re going to talk now about those reasons, and in the next video we’re going to learn the rules of the game. The first thing to realize is, it’s only played with black and white stones. It’s very simple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29 [NEW SLIDE] 0:34 Let’s talk about where it came from. It was developed in China about 4000 years ago. It’s one of the oldest strategy games known. And originally, if you look at this picture, it was played on a scroll. It now looks different. But it certainly is very much still the same game that was developed so many thousands of years ago. Think about the game of chess. It’s based on a feudal system of Europe. Where there are kings and queens and pawns and a definite hierarchy, all the pieces move in different ways, and it can be quite confusing to learn. Go is more simplistic, there’s only two pieces. Once they go on the board they don’t move around. And it’s based more on a yin and yang philosophy. In chess it’s your goal to annihilate the king of the other team and as many pieces as possible. In go, there is an understanding that there is a place for everybody in this world. [NEW SLIDE] 1:42 Let’s talk a little bit more about the comparison of go to chess. Go only has three rules, it’s much easier to learn. However, it’s much harder to master this game than it is to master the game of chess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_%28game%29#Basic_rules There’s a built in handicap system. It’s a little difficult to see, but if you look there are nine individual darkened points on this board. They are called star points. They are handicaps, and later when we learn to play the game, I’ll talk more about them. But when I play a game of chess with my grandfather who was almost a grand master, he’d have to take a bishop or a rook off the board and it would very much change the dynamic of the game. Having a built in handicap system for a weaker C/TM 2014 www.STEAMedu.com STEAM 19 GO 1 player and a stronger player to be able to play each other evenly, is a really nice addition. [NEW SLIDE] 2:36 As a go master, it’s not that hard to find people who want to study under you that will pay you really good wages per hour. There is a college in the United States in Vermont that offers one course on go to their introductory level students. In Korea you can actually get a master’s degree or a bachelor’s degree in this game at Myongji University. http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ http://www.mju.ac.kr/mbs/mjukr/index.jsp?SWIFT_SESSION_CHK=false [NEW SLIDE] 3:04 The science relationships are the boards themselves and what they’re made out of. We know that shells are usually quite thin, the thicker the shell stone that you get, the more expensive it’s going to be because they’re more rare to find. The bowls that hold the stones have a special meaning. And we’ll talk about those more later when we learn how to play the game, but the bowls themselves can be made from wood, woven as baskets, or carved from clay or other items. There’s some nice science and artistic relationships there. Remember I said earlier that there are a huge amount of possibilities to play the game of go? Somebody has estimated that the number of potential go games possible is roughly equivalent to the number of molecules in the universe. There are millions of molecules in the tips of my finger. Think about how many potential go games you can possibly get when you think about it in terms of relating it to the molecules in the entire universe. http://www.thetradingcentre.co.uk/main.asp?category=Go+Equipment [NEW SLIDE] 4:13 Let’s talk about the relationships to technology. It certainly stimulates creativity as well as strategy and design. There’s a lot of left-right brained thinking going on that all go into your ability to be a good technologist, using tools, following directions. There’s also the actual construction of different go equipment, and the materials and the processes that go into it. Now they’re set up with a dado and a rocking blade and those lines are painted in. But you can even out of cardboard make one of the larger more 3D boards with your students to get them to understand direct relationships to technology, measurement, again following directions using tools. C/TM 2014 www.STEAMedu.com STEAM 19 GO 2 [NEW SLIDE] 4:57 That leads us to engineering. This game is amazing for developing engineering thought. It promotes cognitive development and a balance of left and right brain. There are times that you have to count things out, analytically pursue what is happening, and other times you need to look back at it as a picture and analyze what’s going on in the game aesthetically. Computer programmers and physicists tend to be drawn towards being excellent at this game. But I’ve seen artists that are also master level players at this game. The best move for you as an individual player, is usually the best move for your opponent. Think about that in terms of being an engineer. Usually the best product that an engineering company can come out with, is something another engineering company is trying to come out with. Always looking for the best of the best for both yourself and the opposing view, helps develop that engineering mind set. [NEW SLIDE] 6:00 Let’s talk about the relationships to mathematics. First of all, there’s pattern recognition. And you start learning shapes and patterns and relating it to geometry. Then there’s binary mathematics, you have black stones and you have white stones, you’re constantly thinking in terms of on and off, 0 and 1. It gets people starting to think in terms of calculus. There’s a movie called Pi, that’s not a very kid friendly movie, but it definitely strongly relates this game to the field of mathematics. If you’re interested, I suggest you look it up. [NEW SLIDE] 6:36 Now let’s talk about some of the relationships to the arts. And remember, we’re not just talking fine arts, we’re talking the broader spectrum of the social arts. In our own country in WWII, we had Japanese internment camps. We removed people from their houses, their jobs, their lively hoods, their way of connecting to their reality. And also, along with bonsai culture that manifested in these camps, one of the first things that people started building from taking pieces of wood and making boards and taking pebbles and making stones, were go boards. It kept these people intellectually alive when they were removed from the intellectual stimulus that they had access to in the outside world. http://www.usgo.org/news/2012/11/go-spotting-internment-camp-board-at-san-diego-museum/ Also think about the social studies aspect, because remember I said social studies is much more important than just history. But also where we are currently and where we’re going forward to. We no longer live under a European feudal society, but we live in more of a globally accepting culture. We know that even though we have our C/TM 2014 www.STEAMedu.com STEAM 19 GO 3 own view of what we feel is important, that we can respect other people who have different views. This game helps you realize that there is a place for you in this world, and there’s a place for other people. It’s mutually respectful, versus the annihilation factor of chess. In literature there are many novels about go. And now that manga is popular for our young people, there is a wonderful series called Hikaru No Go. Where it’s about a 12 year old that’s embodied by an ancient famous go player where this kid says, “Ah, go is so boring.” And learns the culture of go, how to play go and becomes a master level player. It’s really engaging for our young people who like to read comic books. [NEW SLIDE] 8:33 Now let’s move on to talk about the fine arts. There are of course go boards and go bowls that are beautiful constructions of actual art. They’re still functionally adept to be able to play the game with these pieces, but also just to have an appreciation that they’re beautiful carvings. And there are things called go men that are little figurines that people that I know play go collect. And they’re different scenes of what go means to different people. [NEW SLIDE] 9:07 Let’s talk about what we’ve covered. We’ve covered a little bit about the history of this game.