5 months of /r/place at my elementary school (One pixel per student per day) | Hacker News Reader

place at my elementary school (One pixel per student per day)

reddit.com

141 pointskatiey12 comments

Fascinating to see some of the same movement and trends emerging from the elementary school kids, as with the original Place.

That diagonal rainbow exists somewhere in the universal consciousness, I tells ya.

Great to watch the battles between patterns. I can picture the scheming, group allegiances and eventual co-operation. Lovely stuff.

The pink/blue pattern struck me as more of a depressing display of capitulation to runaway groupthink and mob rule.

Yup same feeling here. Lets make everything the same! is a really boring mindset.

What I find intriguing is that the pattern merely acts as a background.. yet the plain wall at the start was already a background and did not discourage chaos.

Why does a plain background encourage chaos where a patterned background does not? My imagination may be in overdrive, but I think there are some interesting metaphors for why society works hidden in there.. :)

I wouldn't say one encourages chaos over another. The background is a simple pattern that emerges early on while the social dynamics of the "place" are being discovered by the participants. It's literally the simplest coherent thing you can create and requires virtually no communication between participants.

As time goes on coalitions form, cooperation becomes explicit and you end up with more complex patterns (the rainbow) and art (the minion). You saw this same thing play out in /r/place too.

I had that same thought initially. When the Minion appeared, though, I was struck by the power of cooperation in achieving great things. We can achieve far more when we band together.

I picture kids yelling and hitting each other to get what they want, but I guess that's a form of scheming and group allegiances.

It is really interesting how the following order seems to naturally follow itself:

1. disorder and chaos

2. patterns and backgrounds start to appear

3. the battle for the main background, spreading

4. totally background pattern, the war is over

5. group art creations start to appear

...and if it continued, it would probably repeat in a continuous cycle of order and chaos.

I was sad to see the chaos and individuality go away.

An exercise that teaches team work, communication, planning, and patience. As simple as this is, there is a lot of good skill building here for young kids.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com