Rob Alvarez Bucholska
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Gamified Approach to Climate Education with Bobby Donohue | Episode 377

 

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“Life is a game, and we get to wake up and play it every day.” – Bobby Donohue on the Professor Game podcast. Bobby Donohue, the founder of Planet Bonehead, an innovative educational platform designed to empower teachers and inspire students to address climate change through gamification and storytelling. With over 15 years of experience, Bobby shares his journey of using game-inspired solutions to facilitate interactive learning. Throughout the conversation, Bobby highlights both the challenges and successes of his initiatives, while also sharing valuable insights into the world of educational gamification.

Bobby Donohue is the founder of Planet Bonehead, an educational platform that empowers teachers and inspires students to tackle climate change with optimism and creativity. With over 15 years of experience in educational content development, Bobby specializes in blending storytelling, gamification, and interactive learning to make complex environmental topics accessible and engaging. His work focuses on creating innovative tools and resources that encourage action and critical thinking, including the use of gamified strategies to teach kids about recycling, conservation, and sustainable living.

Rob is a host and consultant at Professor Game as well as an expert, international speaker and advocate for the use of gamification and games-based solutions, especially in education and learning. He’s also a professor and workshop facilitator for the topics of the podcast and LEGO SERIOUS PLAY (LSP) for top higher education institutions that include EFMD, IE Business School and EBS among others in Europe, America and Asia.

 

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Lets’s do stuff together!

Looking forward to reading or hearing from you,

Rob

 

Full episode transcription (AI Generated)

Rob:
Hey, this is Professor Game, where we interview successful practitioners of games, gamification and game thinking to help us multiply engagement and loyalty. I’m Rob Alvarez. I’m a consultant, I’m a coach, and I’m the founder here at Professor Game and I’m also a professor of gamification and game inspired solutions at IE University, IE Business School, efmd, EBS University, and other places around the world. And before we dive into the interview, struggling with engagement in your business and are looking to find out how to make your users stay with you. You will find our free community full of resources quite useful. You can find it for free in the links below in the description. So, engagers, welcome to another episode of the Professor Game podcast and we have Bobby with us today. So, Bobby, are you prepared to engage?

Bobby Donohue:
I am. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Rob.

Rob:
Bobby Donahue. Does that sound right?

Bobby Donohue:
Yep, that’s fine. Yep, yep. Perfect.

Rob:
Donahue is the founder of Planet Bonehead, an educational platform that empowers teachers and inspires students to tackle climate change with optimism and creativity. And he has over 15 years of experience in educational content development, specializing in blending storytelling, gamification and interactive learning to make complex environmental topics accessible and engaging. He focuses on creating innovative tools and resources that encourage action and critical thinking, including those the use of gamified strategies to teach kids about recycling, conservation and sustainable living. So, Bobby, is there anything that we should mention before we continue with the questions?

Bobby Donohue:
That was great. I like that.

Rob:
I love, when making these introductions, people say, that’s more than I remember putting in there.

Bobby Donohue:
It’s like, wow, I’m good.

Rob:
Good stuff going on. That’s great. So talking about great stuff going on. What, when, when we talk about a day with you or a week or, you know, what does it feel like to be you sort of nowadays?

Bobby Donohue:
Oh, wow. Okay. There’s, there’s, there’s a, it’s a blend. I would say half, like, enjoyment of what I’m working on and excitement for the thing I’m working on and half my ego saying, what the hell are you doing, dude? Like what? You know what it’s like when you’re doing your own thing and, and you’re making something from the heart. You hope people are going to like it, you hope it’s going to strike a chord and you hope it’s going to make a difference, you know? So I, I would say a day in the life of, emotionally is me feeling all of those things. Literally, a day in the life of is me sitting in this chair Doing the work. Like I’m just making stuff. I’ve got my head down, I’m making videos, I making, I’m writing scripts. And when I have the opportunity, I’m doing podcasts to get the word out. And I appreciate you having me on. Thanks.

Rob:
Awesome having you here, Bobby. So let’s dive into story mode. Right, so you’re a storyteller. How about we go into one of those times when you are using gamification, storytelling and these things and things just did not go your way. We know that you’ve done amazing things, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t had your difficulties along the way. So again, we want to live that experience with you, take some of the lessons that you took and see if maybe we have a chance at avoiding those mistakes ourselves.

Bobby Donohue:
Sure. You know, I would say if we’re talking about things not going my way, I got some great just yesterday things. So, you know, I, I’ve had the opportunity here to. I’m grappling inside, like how do I want to start getting the word out for this thing? Because just as some background here, Planet Bonehead as a program is not new. I started it in, it’s been in School since 2011, you know, and the videos have been streaming into classrooms since then thanks to partnerships that I have with different distributors. So that told me that this program has legs because these, these distributors don’t just put anything into classrooms. They review them, they study them, they make, they do their due diligence. I have to be approved to be on their rost. And so. And then schools have been using it and I’ve been getting the feedback from that for all these years. What is new is this new platform that I’m creating where, where I’m going direct to schools. And so for me, part of it was like, how do I want to start bringing this into schools? There’s doing like what you do on LinkedIn where I’m just doing outreach directly to schools. And then I was thinking about maybe getting an investor to do some pre seed investing in this, maybe to just to pad my bank account a little bit so I can the work without worrying about feeding myself at the same time. And you know, so I was like, that’s a great idea. Who wouldn’t love this? And so I started putting a lot of energy into that only to get, you know, some form letter thing. Sorry, you weren’t picked for the accelerator this time around. Just yesterday morning I got, I woke up and that was the first thing I read. I was like, okay, this is going to be a great day, you know, but I had to, that doesn’t have anything to do specifically with gamification, but I had, I had to, you know, if we think of life as a game, I had to think about this as like, you know, this is not the end of anything. I didn’t, I didn’t lose any points here, you know, I just didn’t gain any. And, and maybe this road that I was thinking of taking is not the road I should even be taking. It, you know, it was just an experiment to see what’s down there for me. So, yeah, it’s back to just doing the outreach, which is what I’m good at anyway. That’s what I normally do for my businesses, so that’s what I’m doing.

Rob:
Awesome, awesome. Good stuff. And I’m sure having it from that perspective and the experience that you’ve had, it doesn’t mean that somebody else might not go down that route. And that would make sense for them. There’s no reason one way or the other. But it does mean that you have to understand what your situation is, try out things, as you were saying, and see how it goes and have that sort of. I like to talk about that scientist mind where you’re saying, well, this is something that I’m trying right now. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to work. It doesn’t mean that if it doesn’t work, it’s the end of my, you know, my career. But I’m going to try. Let’s, let’s see what happens, you know, let’s see if I can validate this hypothesis that I have right now.

Bobby Donohue:
Yeah, that’s a really great way to put it. I like that, the scientist mind, because I, I think about that a lot. I’m one of those analytical yet creative people. I’m like, right brain, left brain at the same time. And so for me, it’s like whenever I have a problem or something, I, I, I, I do it like one step at a time, like, just to figure out, well, is it this or is it this? And if this doesn’t work, then it means it could be that. And I try to do that like you just said in, in life as well. It’s like, don’t look at this as it has to be this thing or else I’m a failure. Let’s think of it instead as I’m going to try this thing and see what happens, you know, and if it’s not a good path, then I have other paths. You know, nobody, nobody came to me and said, you can’t be in the accelerator and you have to quit Planet Bonehead now. Like you’re, you’re banned from doing your work. Nobody said that. You know, so it’s, it can be a little heartbreaking in the moment when to get a, to get a rejection of any kind from anything. But it shouldn’t be a reflection of your self worth and your value as a person or what you’re building.

Rob:
Nobody said your project is not good or not good enough. It’s just. It doesn’t fit.

Bobby Donohue:
It doesn’t fit.

Rob:
That’s it.

Bobby Donohue:
Exactly. Exactly.

Rob:
That’s all. That’s all. Amazing. So actually, let’s take a shift and how about we go for something that did work. You’ve been doing planned Bonehead for a while.

Bobby Donohue:
Yeah.

Rob:
You’ve been doing a lot of things you mentioned since 2000. How about a time where things, you know, again, coming back to these, these topics of games, gamification, storytelling in the classroom, something that did work. Again, the first try, the tenth try doesn’t matter. We want to be there with you and perhaps find one of those success factors that you’ve seen along the way.

Bobby Donohue:
Sure. I’ll do this specifically about gamification. So there’s a unit that I’ve just launched. It’s called the smart recycling unit, and it’s an upgrade to an old recycling unit that I made many years ago where basically just taught kids what recycling was, you know, But I wanted to update this unit for, for the 2000s and especially for AI. And, and one thing I learned in talking with a lot of green tech leaders and stuff is that we have a lot of solutions for climate change already. Green tech is saving the world, but nobody knows about these things exist. And what I learned in talking to these people is that it’s not that we don’t know how to fix climate change, it’s that it’s that nobody really wants to. You know, we don’t have the political will. And we all know, and I’m going to talk about recycling specifically here because we all know we should be recycling. Right? We know that, like I’ve got this tissue box here. When it’s done, I should take this plastic thing out and I should put the cardboard in the recycling bin. But do I. Well, I do. But do most people know, you know, and the reason is because it’s a pain in the butt. It’s just a pain in the ass to be like, I have to do this. And you know, the can has to go out on this day and I have to remember which can and which things go in what can. And it’s annoying, you know, And I tried to figure out, like, how can I get kids on board with this? How can I get kids to be a little more excited about recycling, not just learning what it is so that they can pass the test, but actually want to go and do it, do it in the school and do it in the thing. And I came up with the idea of making it a game, you know, because I was learning about what’s called smart bins. They’re AI driven bins where you can take your stuff and put it in the bin and the bin will do the work to recycle it for you. Inside the bin are separate bins. So you put it in one opening, but the AI camera can see what’s it, what it is and then put it in the correct thing inside. And then, and, and so it, it, it can then give you points. You can have, you can have, you can have a family account or a school or classroom account, you know, and you can make it a competition among, like a fun thing just to see who can get the most points. So as you put things in, if you do it wrong, it, you won’t get the points, but it’ll say, hey, that’s wrong. You got to do it this way. And then when you correct it, it gives you points not only for doing it right, but for correcting your past mistakes. So these things are possible. Like this technology exists. We just need to be able to build it and implement it at scale. So my thinking is I want to teach kids about this so that we can, they can start to grow up and want to build these things at scale so that everybody can afford to have these in their homes. Right now the technology exists, but you and I aren’t going to go out and buy one tomorrow because we got.

Rob:
That’S what I was going to say.

Bobby Donohue:
Like we got better things to spend our money on today.

Rob:
You know, there’s a difference between, you know, recycling being possible and it being feasible. And that’s one of the big things. Sometimes it’s, I’ve done my stints and stuff in the world of recycling. But even if you want to, like back home, I’m from Venezuela, I always use the example that at least when I was there, even if I wanted to recycle, I had a hard time finding a place to, you know, actually put it so that it would be recycled. Right. We had a single recycle Bin for everything. That was it. There were a few places where you can find that. Whereas here, now I live in Madrid, in Spain, in my home, I separate my trash and it goes, at least in theory, to a different place. I’m not sure what happens afterwards. I kind of okay with the part that I’m doing, but it’s completely different structures. And then how does that, you know, whether we are paying for it as citizens with our taxes because we’re motivated to the consequences of recycling, or is it actually a business where somebody’s making money out of doing this efficiently? And of course, if they have to buy AI bins every time, it’s gonna be harder to make it a business for sure. It’s gonna be more expensive for, for the public. So those, those are considerations that are always on the way as well.

Bobby Donohue:
Yeah, I think the AI bins for the home right now are not really cost effective because most people aren’t going to spend the money for that. But neither were flat screen TVs when they came out, you know, and it hasn’t really been that long. And now you only get flat screen tv, you know what I mean? So it’s like, pretty soon all garbage cans will be AI driven. Like, it’ll just be. There they all are. We won’t even be like, hey, I got this, AI. No, they all are. I just, I got a garbage can it. You know what I mean? So we need to get it to that point. The. Once it goes to the recycling center, that actually is a business. So they, they got to clean it up and they got to, they have to sort it even more and they package it up and then companies buy that material to use and stuff. So they, they make money on that. It’s why. I don’t know what it’s like in your hometown, but here, here where I live in New York, you can’t recycle any plastic there. There are like seven different kinds of plastic with the. Do you have the recycle? Is that like global? The recycle triangle with the number inside or is that just the United States?

Rob:
I’ve seen the triangle. I have to be completely fair. I haven’t noticed the. The number. Okay, now you say it. Yeah, I feel like there are numbers, but here we only have plastic and aluminum. In fact, they go together. I guess it depends on how it’s treated on each.

Bobby Donohue:
Well, at the plant, it’s easy for them to separate the metal from the plastic because they can just use magnets and stuff. But here we can only do 12 and 5, those are the numbers of plastic. But we also have containers that are 3 and 4 and 6 and 7, and those can’t be recycled. So that just adds confusion to the whole thing, and it’s annoying.

Rob:
Totally. Totally. So how did you find success doing these things? What was that experience like?

Bobby Donohue:
Well, the success came by accident. I was making this show because I wanted to make the show. I wanted to make this thing Planet Bonehead. And I started selling it on DVDs through distributors they were selling directly to schools on DVD. And then a couple of years later, they started getting phasing out the DVDs and doing streaming. So now these companies are like Netflix for schools, say. And I noticed that I was getting really good feedback from them. They said, hey, teachers really like this. They want units on this, they want videos on that. And I just started making them. And then a couple of years ago, I found more distributors. The original ones that I had were only streaming to the United States and Canada. And then I found one that did the UK and Australia as well. And then I found another one that. That was in 80 countries globally. So I submitted my work to them, too, and had to go through all of the. Every time I make a new unit, I have to submit it to all of these companies for review. You know, they won’t just take anything and throw it up on their platform for schools to use. They have to review.

Rob:
It makes sense.

Bobby Donohue:
So this is what told me I made something really good here. Every time I make something, all of these companies are reviewing it and saying, yep, we’ll put that on our roster. You know, they’re very selective. So I was like, well, I know that it’s working. I know schools are using it. The royalty checks keep showing up every quarter. So I’m very happy about this. If it were no good, the distributors would say, nobody likes this. Go away. You know, don’t bother making anything else for me. So. So that. That, I would say has been my biggest success in this, is having made something and proven it over the years now, since 2011, that it is valuable and that schools do like it and use it. So I’m really proud of that.

Rob:
What is. What is it that makes what you do different from other things? Because as you were saying, these distributors, I’m sure they get a ton of requests, and many of them are. They just say, no, thank you.

Bobby Donohue:
Yeah, well, two things that I do that are different. One is, well, I guess for the ones that they say, no, thank you, it’s probably because of quality or it’s not standards aligned, and I’m not going to bash people. Everybody does their best, you know, of course. And my first videos were not good years ago. You know, I already had years of experience making videos when I first started submitting things. But what makes Planet Bonehead unique in the education realm is its focus on climate change. The biggest problem in education, especially in the United States, but globally as well, is teachers want to teach kids about climate change, but they lack the knowledge, they lack resources, and they lack support to do so with any amount of confidence. Knowledge, meaning that teachers aren’t climate scientists. They are prone to getting confused by the same myths and misinformation and misconceptions that everybody else is. Understand Recycling as much as I used to, I put it in the bin. But I don’t know what happens after that. You know, teachers are people too. And we kids think that they know everything, but they don’t. So they’re going into these topics without the personal knowledge to even answer basic questions that kids have. So I’m, I’m trying to solve that with something called the Teacher Learning center, where I’m making course content specifically for the adults. Here’s what climate change is. Here’s the difference between climate and weather. Here’s the facts versus the myths. So there’s that. And then the second thing is resources. They don’t have video content, they don’t have textbooks, they don’t have lesson plans, activities to do in the classroom, discussions to talk about with the kids. They don’t know what to teach them. There’s no curriculum, you know, so Planet Bonehead fills the curriculum gap for science teachers and also social studies teachers, because there’s also a social justice component to climate change. It affects different cultures in different countries, and here in the US it affects different states differently, you know, and then finally there’s support because climate change is like the third rail of education. Some people don’t want to talk about it. You know, politically here in the United States, in some areas it’s a no, no, like you can’t talk about that. And so some teachers feel isol and abandoned on this topic. So I want them to know that there’s a place where they can come and there’s. I have discussions with experts and panel discussions where they can learn exactly what we need to be teaching kids to prepare them for careers in green tech fields and to help them feel not so isolated and alone teaching this stuff.

Rob:
Awesome. And is there a, like you’ve mentioned, that they use gamification. Storytelling is There, Is there a side to that as well? Does that have any influence on what you publish through these distributors?

Bobby Donohue:
Not specifically. It’s not like Planet Bonehead is a gamification. Has a gamification topic. The fact that I did that for the recycling unit specifically was a bit unique to most of the units. However, what it taught me was that by turning. Well, so in the recycling unit, what I did was I. I realized that a lot of people know they should recycle, but they don’t because it’s a pain in the butt. And I, I tried to turn it into a game. And what I realized is that when we try to get people to change their behavior or modify their behavior through motivation, through the desire to avoid negative consequences, it doesn’t always work. You know, it’s like, I know if I do this thing or if I don’t do this thing the way you want me to, I’m gonna get hit. Like, okay, I’m not gonna do that thing because I don’t want to get hit. But I know that if I don’t do this recycling thing, then some abstract thing out in the world maybe could happen that. I don’t know. I don’t see it. That’s. That’s not getting anybody to do anything, you know, unless they’re true believers in the cause and they’re like, ah, you cannot throw this in the garb because it’s going to destroy the planet. Like, nobody believes that. If I throw this in the garbage, that’s it, Earth’s over. Like, that this one box isn’t going to make a difference at all, you know, but millions of people recycling their boxes or not actually does make a difference. And what I’ve learned is that we can’t just motivate people to change their behavior to avoid consequences. We need to inspire them to change their behavior because it’s. It makes them feel good because we can get something great out of it. And in the recycling unit specifically, the gamifications and the points were just a great way. Like, we can make this fun. This doesn’t have to be a chore. You know, we all like playing games. Everybody does. Whether you’re a gamer on video consoles or you just are a human being who enjoys entertainment, we all like getting points. It feels good. We get a dopamine hit from that. You know what I mean? It’s great. It’s a lot of fun. And there’s no reason we can’t do that to. And save the planet at the same time.

Rob:
You know, that’s cool. Get a pat on the clarifying. I agree with that. You know, introducing some elements can always help a lot. Just keep it in mind for, you know, whether it’s for that unit or in the future. You have points, you have badges, you have leaderboards, and there’s a whole universe of things that are behind it as well that could be potentially useful. I’m not saying points is not the be all that you need, but just consider that there are other elements as well that you can include. So, Bobby, awesome hearing your experience using this for that unit and the storytelling that you. You go through and all that. After hearing this, this sort of your. Your experience with this, would you. Do you have some. I don’t know. How did you do it? How did you come up with the idea? Do you have some? In a couple of minutes at most. Do you have some sort of process or something when you. When you want to come up with an idea like this one?

Bobby Donohue:
You know, that’s a really great question, and the answer is no, because I don’t try to force ideas. When I do, they don’t really work out too well. I’ve. I’m one of those people. I’ve. I’ve never been short on ideas. I’m short on time to fulfill my ideas. Planet Bonehead is one idea that I have for a project. I’ve got, like, three others that I could be working on. And one of. One of the biggest problems I have is that sometimes I would stop, I’d get to a point with one and then stop and then go and work on something else because I got bored and I realized, dude, you gotta. You gotta finish something, you know? So with Planet Bonehead specifically, I have tried to engineer it. I have, and it’s almost always failed. What hasn’t failed is the idea of, let me try this thing and see what works. And like we were saying earlier, like, the investment thing, it just. Trying to force. The investment thing was just emotionally taxing for me, you know? So instead I’m trying to think, okay, it was a. It was a path that I tried, and it’s not panning out. I’m not shut off from other paths. I’m just gonna go take another path. But I have to take each path with. With my eyes open to the possibility that I might see a better path, that if I say this is the path, and I’m sticking with this path until, you know, death do me part, I might die failing, because 10 other things were trying to get my attention the whole time. So I Don’t know, maybe that’s a process. I don’t know. I don’t really think of it as one. I don’t have like a four step plan, you know, that all start with the letter C or something. Like, you know, like caring and charisma. Like I don’t have that, you know, I just wake up and go, what should I be doing today? And I do. That sounds great.

Rob:
Sounds great. So Bobby, after hearing these questions and having some of the experience on the podcast, is there anybody that you would like to hear from and sort of a featured guest for. For Professor Game?

Bobby Donohue:
Oh, that’s a really good question. I hadn’t thought about that. If. If I, If. Wow. I. I don’t know the answer to that question. I’ll. You know, what’s this happens to me sometimes I feel like I get put on the spot about something and I go blank. And five minutes later, when it’s not time, I think of five things. I was like, oh, that would have been a great answer. You know? You know, you know who I think would be a great would be Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I don’t. If you could get him. I think he is just amazing on podcasts and, and I think he would have such an am amazing spin on what he talks about and our place in the universe and gamification. I, I think like if that were possible for you to get him as a guest. Well, we can always ask. I do have a friend who would be a good guest for you, I think. And his name is Landon and he’s. He’s creating a self help platform that’s sort of based on imagineering and mountaineering your own life. Like starting at a base camp and just building your life through. Actually it’s called Dude. It’s a game. Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s like this should have been my first immediate answer. Sorry. So he has this program called Dude. It’s a game where life is a game and he’s created this whole thing and it’s, it’s not a self help thing in terms of do this step one and do this step two. It’s more of a choose your own adventure kind of a. Like you could be within his world for months and miss half of what he’s created because you just did not go down that path. I think he’d be a great guest for you.

Rob:
Sounds good. Landon. Give us contact details later and hook.

Bobby Donohue:
You guys up after this. Yeah, for sure.

Rob:
We’ll get in contact. And speaking of recommendations, is There maybe a book that you recommend to the engagers. Remember this audience looked. Looking into using, you know, gamified strategies, games or all these to help people perform certain actions that will be beneficial for them.

Bobby Donohue:
Yeah. When people ask me about a book, I have one answer. It’s my favorite book. It’s not specifically gaming, but it’s catch 22. And it’s really. Just. The reason is because there’s this one part. Are you familiar with this book, Catch 22? It takes place during World War II, and it’s a squadron of B17 bomber crews. And this one guy is. He’s just saying that he wants to get off the flight crews because he’s too afraid to go up in the air again. And he said, they’re trying to kill me. And the doctor’s like, I can’t. I can’t let you go because they’re not trying to kill you. They’re trying to kill everybody. And he’s like, that’s not a distinction. Right. And the point of that part of the book for me is that I feel like we personalize everything in life. Everything feels personal. Getting that form letter from the investment accelerator that I wasn’t accepted felt personal, despite the fact that consciously and intelligently, I know it’s not personal. You know, they have. They have 10,000 people applying, and they can pick 20. Obviously most people are getting that letter, but it still feels like somebody saying, you’re not good enough, you know? And I think that if we can just sort of take a page out of My Friend’s Thing. Dude, it’s a game, you know, just to realize that life is a game, and we get to wake up and play it every day. And no matter what anybody says, even if they’re trying to, you know, kill you somehow. Hopefully not literally, but if they are and it feels like they’re coming after you personally, they’re probably not, you know, And. And that’s. That’s the lesson that I try to take from that book all the time. I hope that works in the context here.

Rob:
Makes a lot of sense, actually. And let’s actually dive into the difficult question. What would you say is your favorite game?

Bobby Donohue:
My favorite game that’s actually easy is Mario Brothers. That’s my favorite game. And I know a lot of people are gonna be like, I’m not personally, like, a big gamer. I was when I was a kid. When I was a kid, I grew up with Ataris, and we had Intellivision in my house, and. And my favorite game back then was Pitfall as a kid, are you familiar with that game? That game was just. I could play that all day long. But then my son, I have a son, he’s 19 now, and when he was younger we used to play Mario Brothers together. So to me that was just like the most fun. Mostly because it was me and him doing it together. So I just have a lot of fond memories of that and it makes me feel really good. And then he started playing games that I couldn’t keep up with. Atmosphere.

Rob:
They just started getting harder and harder. And you know, when you hear about the esports, it’s always surprising for me to even remember it because now I know, I know that after, I think at the age of something like 22, 23, you start declining, your reflexes start going down. As a gamer, like you cannot be a pro any later than something like 25. So think athletes, you know, when they’re 28, they’re at the peak and then they start declining. Yeah, E athletes, it’s like 22, 23 or something.

Bobby Donohue:
Wow, I, I didn’t know that. But it does make sense because, you know, it was the hardest thing for me playing games with my son. The reason why Mario was so easy for me was it. It was one of those flat two dimensional games like I played as a kid, you know, Then he’s like, hey, let’s try this game. And there are these. Now there’s like these 3D games. Like, what’s that one that they all loved a few years ago? The one where you had the battle royale at the end you jump, jump out of the thing.

Rob:
Fortnite.

Bobby Donohue:
Yeah, Fortnite. That’s it, right. So I tried playing Fortnite with him. And the problem with Fortnite is you have to run in a three dimensional space. Am I frozen there? I am. You have to run in a three dimensional space and, and do two dimensional things at the same time. So he’s like, you do this with this finger and that with that finger. I was like, that’s too much. I can’t do it. I can, I can move it with one hand and press the button. That’s what I know how to do, you know, And I would try. I just couldn’t get used to it. It’s just like my 80s kid brain was just like, what are you doing, dude? That’s not how games work.

Rob:
I think I was fortunate to be still a kid, I guess when the 64, Nintendo 64 came in and 3D worlds started appearing because I had to make that transition. It was Hard. And don’t get me wrong, like, initially, especially Mario 64 initially, like, the controls were a bit rough. I don’t know. They didn’t make any updates back then. So I’m not sure if I just got a little bit better at it. But I did, I guess that I did form part of that transition period where, you know, 3D started to be a thing. So for me, I do, I can do for now. I’m not gonna be competitive, not gonna be like a super good Fortnite ever, like, gamer in any capacity. Even in my 20s, like, or in my. When I was 17, 18 years old, I was not competitive. But I can do it. I can do it semi.

Bobby Donohue:
Well, I guess I was happy when I shot somebody. Like, hey, I shot. And myself was like, nice job, dad.

Rob:
Totally, totally. So, Bobby, we’re arriving to the end of the interview. I don’t know if you have any final words, any, you know, where we can find out more about you. This is, this is the time for that.

Bobby Donohue:
Sure. Usually I would just say anybody who’s interested in what I’m working on can check out the platform@planetbonehead.com that’s the best thing to do. So if you’re in education for K to 8 education, you’re a teacher, principal, superintendent, curriculum developer. There’s a free trial there to check it out and use it for, you know, no commitment, no payment required, and just see what the program is about and how it works and see if it fits for you. Even for people who are homeschooling or want it for their own kids, you can, you can do it for that as well. And if you’re interested in talking with me, I’m. I’m always looking for people to do joint ventures or some kind of strategic partnership or anything like, hey, what if we did this together? You know, you can also contact me through planetponed.com or you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s the best way to hit me. Sounds email’s not good because I miss them. I got a million emails a day and I miss them when they go to spam. Unless. Unless I know you already, I don’t see it half the time.

Rob:
Makes sense. Makes sense. So that’s fantastic. Bobby, thank you very much again for showing up on the podcast today, for sharing your experience, your knowledge, your understanding, and all the things that have happened to you in the stories that you gave us. However, Bobby and Engagers, as you know, at least for now and for today, it is time to say that it’s game over. Hey engagers, and thank you for listening to the Professor Game podcast. And since you’re interested in this world of creating motivation, engagement, loyalty using game inspired solutions, how about you join us on our free online community at Professor Game On School? You can find the link right below in the description, but the main thing is to click there. Join us. It’s a platform called Skool. It’s for free, and you’ll find plenty of resources there. We’ll be up to date with everything that we’re doing, any opportunities that we might have for you, and of course, before you go on to your next mission, before you click Continue, please remember to subscribe using your favorite podcast app and listen to the next episode of Professor Game. See you there.

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