How Transformational Play Is Shaping CMU’s Next Research Frontier
By: Maila Jill Rible
As soon as Aya Al Sabahi caught wind that her program was offering a new concentration in Transformational Play, she wasted no time throwing her hat in the ring.
“Not only was it the kind of work I’ve always wanted to do, it was a perfect fit for the kinds of problems I want to solve,” Al Sabahi said.
Al Sabahi is in her first-year pursuing a Master’s in Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). She is one of six students participating in the pilot transformational play concentration offered by the Center for Transformational Play (CTP), a research center that’s part of CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII).
Transformational play connects insights from psychology, learning science, education, game design, and interactive technology. The goal is to design playful systems that influence or reveal how people think, feel, and behave.
