The World Puzzle - How to learn your countries the fun way. (laser cut) by Samuel Bernier

Have you ever seen one of these videos where a journalist interviews students and adults, asking them to point Iran out on a map? The result is often funny, and so is this game. Over a hundred countries, some of them you never heard about, in a puzzle race. Here is how to make one of the best geography games of all time! 

The objective of this game is to teach geography to children and adults. The players won't only learn the location of countries, they will also learn the neighboring seas and oceans. The players can compare the size of countries and overlay the pieces to learn things such as : US is 18 times bigger than France or Japan fits 25 times in Canada or that ... Switzerland really is a small country. (the ones that were too small to grab were merged with their neighbors) 

123D link : http://www.123dapp.com/AssetManager/Publisher?stgAction=getProduct&intProductId=597789

Step 1: Material

Many types of materials can be used : wood, cardboard, polypropylene, metal... But I used colored acrylic 0.172 inch thick. The size of the board was 2 x 3 feet (24 x 36 inches), but could be bigger since you can easily scale or edit the .EPS file.
Don't forget to remove the protection layer before doing anything with it. 

Comments

[Dinakaran]

wow.. tats a brilliant idea.

[Dinakaran]

wow.. tats a brilliant idea.

[gracefulstumbles]

This is exactly what I have been wanting to do for years! Wow, thank you so much! I absolutely cannot wait to do this! I wanted an effective and efficient way to learn the names of the countries of the world as well as where they are, and the idea of a world map puzzle has always been in my mind. Now that I see someone has done it, I will follow suit before anyone else gets in the way. I also wanted to incorporate the four-color map theorem; we'll see how it goes!

[Kiteman]

That looks real nice.

Here's an idea to take it further:

1. Engrave the map into a sheet of steel (if the laser can't engrave steel, use painted steel, like a piece from the side of an old freezer).
2. Edit the version you cut from plastic to include a small circle in the centre of each country, and glue a neodymium magnet into the circle.
3. Glue the seas & oceans in the right places on the steel version, and then the kids can place the countries more easily, with less chance of pieces being lost to bumps and sneezes.

[somethingsaurus]

Have you thought about trying a different map projection?

[Jayefuu]

This needs to go on the leaderboard with the NES and N64 to see who can complete the puzzle fastest.

[wilgubeast]

Agreed. Leverage those spatial reasoning skills honed with hours of Tetris and apply them to making the shapes fit in the map. And perhaps some geography will be learned at the same time. At the very least we will wonder what is supposed to fit in Suriname's place, because that one's bound to get lost with Andorra and Vatican City.

[CatTrampoline]

Excellent idea! I learned the states as a child using a USA map puzzle. It was a much more natural way of learning than rote memorization.

The only problem I can see is the need to update the map as country boundaries change and/or are renamed. The globe of today looks MUCH different than the globe of my youth!

[Samuel Bernier]

I agree! That's why the map can be edited. This kind of game makes much more sense when shared in open-source.

[gnomeworkspuzzles]

Excellent instruction and I love the bright colors! Thanks for sharing everything. I may have to try this out.

[embochner]

freakin awesome!! I want one !!