Nintendo Labo and Theories of Edutainment

Further readings:
Architect Edwin Heathcote connects dots between the toys architects play with as children and the buildings they design as adults:

Thanks to Ace Waters, for the always-fantastic musical beats! The ending track can be heard here:

Other social media footage used can be found at:
(Froebel gift #2, episode 2)
(Uptown Funk You Up)
(Zelda)
(?????????)
(Calamari Inkantation)
(All Star)
(Game & Watch Recreation)
(Roulette Wheel)
(Vending machine)

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[adl]

Fun fact: “toy” and “tool” share etymological roots :)

[estebanrodriguez]

"All children of all classes are more important than their adults by default"
That's why I'm subscribed to this channel

[merriospas]

Good thing of you having an adult accompanying you the whole trip, George.

[katzenlampe]

Are you really gonna stand there by that green screen and expect nothing to happen?

[patow]

George for someone that's reviewing some capitalist cardboard product for a tablet that plays video games you really went of the charts with this. You bring a socioeconomic, pedagogic, historic, anthropologic and cultural debate into this thing while also making a fun interesting video and a legit review into the whole thing. Keep up the good work. I dont care if you make a video every month or two these are just so good.

[Simte]

The concept of "edutainment" it's particularly interesting being a teacher myself. Nintendo's didactic approach towards learning and experimenting with innovative ways to interact with its community of gamers gives great insight on an alternative path of gaming as a whole. Thank you for exploring this particular topic.

[LolingStaz]

From Legos to Minecraft and now this video games are now becoming something comfortably more than just toys.

[Tardsmat]

"all children of all classes are more important than their adults by default"

Such a good way to put it

[WritingOnGames]

THIS WAS FANTASTIC AND YOU ARE THE BEST

[FliggityFlargen]

Rewatching this after your union video and you're just gonna cite the Frankfurt School and expect me not to notice. One of us. One of us.

[AshnSilvercorp]

to be honest, after being an educator for about a year now, I kinda am of the school of people who think we coddle children and hold them back in our schooling system.
I was forced to give lectures many times because of how many classes I had to teach at once, and I was bored giving lectures. I knew my students had to be bored too.

So I don't think it will be toys that will always do it, but I know we could probably save alot on paperwork if we found a way to actually have students do things instead of staring at a book for an hour, trying to figure out what they could have learned in 10 minutes, and spent the rest of the time actually using said thing.

[Revoker]

HE SNUCK IN THE NOODLES! THE MAD GENIUS!!

Nice video also, always covering interesting topics from interesting angles :)

[spinyjustspiny]

Perhaps an interesting quality that denotes how successful the Labo is in its educational qualities: I didn't even realize it qualified as educational. I figured it was laying down the groundwork for an interesting way of circumventing the costs of making hyperspecific peripherals.
Because it's made of perforated and folded cardboard, it's easy as hell to make entirely new housings and controllers for any game that comes out, and the build-it-yourself quality of them means that even assembling them can be a fun time.

What I hadn't seen is the parts where they explicitly let the player know exactly how these things work, up to and including how the Switch's various sensors and feedback mechanisms interact with the Labo projects. And THAT is a really interesting thing to do in terms of sparking curiosity, since most consoles seem content on merely bringing up baseline features while taking how they work for granted and letting the audience believe they're just magic boxes for all they care.

[treetheoaks]

You are the only person who I will link videos from when people tell me that video game journalism is an oxymoron.

[toastofcatbread]

This did a better job of selling me on the Labo than any of Nintendo's actual advertisements.

[Zach_Wiberg]

This reminds me of that time Matt beat George in LABO!

[jacobjohnson]

Labo's a great way to teach kids about engineering and robotics, honestly. If only there was a way to make it inexpensive.

[jellocube]

Holy shit, you have finally transcended into a fully documentary artform. May these brilliant productions never end.

[TheDaemonDD]

Wow I finally realize the point of Labo. Fancy that.

Wish people would go into this much sooner instead of being overly antagonistic nutjobs when you criticize Nintendo for anything ever.

But yeah, it kinda shows how and why modern education simply doesn't work well for most people. At our base, we're practical animals who wants an understanding of the world around us. Not ones who wants to be berated by others because we get a number wrong.

That aside, great video. I like this take on the whole thing that calmly explains why exactly there is a merit to projects like these.

[bennolee]

Wow I am consistently blown away by the quality of your reporting and content.