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Digital signage kiosk teaches video game coding

Travelers at the Helsinki tram station learned how to code through a digital signage kiosk that invited them to play a wrestling video game by programming wrestler moves.

February 17, 2016 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator

Learning to program in JavaScript can be an arcane and difficult process, but one company is helping make the process more enjoyable by creating a wrestling game called Slush Smackdown where players control their wrestlers by writing lines of code. Outdoor advertiser JCDecaux teamed up with the company, Slush, to craft a digital signage kiosk at a Helsinki tram station for users to test their skill.

The wrestling game was created as part of a contest to create the best educational game to teach people how to code in Java. Slush chose the user who created Smackdown as the winner. At the busy station in Helsinki, travelers got a chance to try out the game on a big screen.

In a video posted by JCDecaux, users wrote code on their tablets and smartphones, and then synced their devices up with the digital signage kiosk. They programmed their wrestlers and then fought against the kiosk computer or against other players. The one who designed the best wrestler artificial intelligence would win the fight.

Essentially, this project enabled users to learn about the bare bones basics of programming, including such concepts as "if/else" constructions and loops. You can watch the kiosk in action in the video below:

About Bradley Cooper

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Bradley Cooper is the editor of ATM Marketplace and Food Truck Operator. He was previously the editor of Digital Signage Today. His background is in information technology, advertising, and writing.

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