Leapster
Encyclopedia
Educational game
Educational games are games that have been designed to teach people about a certain subject, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play...
handheld game console
Handheld game console
A handheld game console is a lightweight, portable electronic device with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are run on machines of small size allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place...
aimed at 4 to 10 year olds (preschool to fourth grade
Fourth grade
Fourth grade is a year of education in the United States and many other nations. The fourth grade is the fourth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 9 or 10 years old, depending on their birthday. It is a part of elementary school. In some parts of the United States, fourth grade...
), made by LeapFrog Enterprises
Leapfrog Enterprises
LeapFrog Enterprises Inc is an educational entertainment company based in Emeryville, California. LeapFrog designs, develops and markets technology-based learning products and related content for the education of infant through grade school children at home and in schools internationally.- History...
. Its games teach the alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
, phonics
Phonics
Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations...
, basic math (addition
Addition
Addition is a mathematical operation that represents combining collections of objects together into a larger collection. It is signified by the plus sign . For example, in the picture on the right, there are 3 + 2 apples—meaning three apples and two other apples—which is the same as five apples....
, subtraction
Subtraction
In arithmetic, subtraction is one of the four basic binary operations; it is the inverse of addition, meaning that if we start with any number and add any number and then subtract the same number we added, we return to the number we started with...
, multiplication
Multiplication
Multiplication is the mathematical operation of scaling one number by another. It is one of the four basic operations in elementary arithmetic ....
, division
Division (mathematics)
right|thumb|200px|20 \div 4=5In mathematics, especially in elementary arithmetic, division is an arithmetic operation.Specifically, if c times b equals a, written:c \times b = a\,...
), and art and animal facts to players. Along with a directional pad, the system features a touchscreen
Touchscreen
A touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...
with a stylus that enables young users to interact directly with the screen.
The Leapster was succeeded by the Leapster2
Leapster2
On February 5, 2008 LeapFrog Enterprises announced the Leapster2 handheld device as a successor to the successful Leapster device.-External links:* *...
, released in 2008. The Leapster2 is essentially the previous system with an added USB port and SD card slot. These additions give the ability to play a downloaded full game or short game including the ability to log data on gameplay, such as what has been learned by the user or art created by the user. Downloadable games are not currently for sale.
Games released since the Leapster2's release log user activity and will send this data to LeapFrog's "Learning Path" system, which tracks educational milestones completed. Completion of certain learning activity can allow online games to be accessed, and in the case of art created on the device, the art can be further embellished online and printed with a printer accessible by the user's computer.
History
Released in late 2003, the Leapster has since undergone several revisions. The Leapster L-Max, which is a version that has one extra feature (a TV output, which allows the user to view and hear gameplay on their television) was released in 2004, and the console's size has decreased. The Leapster TV, a screenless version with the same basic control layout in a console form, was released in 2005.The Leapster is presently the best-selling educational handheld, and has sold about 4 million units and 12 million software cartridges since its inception, as of May 2007. It is regularly sold in 9 countries directly, and in another 7 for teaching English as a second language in schools.
Software
There are presently approximately 40 games available, and over 50 have been created. This is the largest library for any handheld designed exclusively for educational use.All games for the Leapster feature a "Hint" function that will bring up audio or animated information on controls or the game's educational curriculum.
LeapFrog
Leapfrog
Leapfrog is a children's game in which players vault over each other's stooped backs. The first participant rests hands on knees and bends over, which is called giving a back. Games of this sort have been called by this name since at least the late sixteenth century.The next player places hands on...
has not opened the Leapster platform to significant amounts of third-party or homebrew
Homebrew (video games)
Homebrew is a term frequently applied to video games or other software produced by consumers to target proprietary hardware platforms not typically user-programmable or that use proprietary storage methods...
development; software is typically developed in-house or as work-for-hire.
Dave Bauer stated that there is a
"depressingly small library of software available for the Leapster... but some more varied software would make it much more interesting for (my son)... no platform that has ever been successful without third-party software... Besides that, a strong hobbyist platform would be amazing."Ian Bogost stated "the potential for improved educational game design is simply not going to come from inside the LeapFrog corporation."
Technical specifications
Hardware:- CPU: Custom ASICApplication-specific integrated circuitAn application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use. For example, a chip designed solely to run a cell phone is an ASIC...
containing an ARCTangent 5.1 CPU, running at 96MHz. - Memory: Original Leapster: 2MB onboard RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, 256 bytes non-volatile. Leapster2: 16MB RAM, 128kbytes non-volatile storage - Media type: Cartridges of 4-16MB with between 2 and 512kb non-volatile storage.
- Graphics: 4Mb ATI chip.
- Audio: Proprietary hardware audio acceleration.
- Screen: 160x160 CSTN with touchscreen.
- Leapster2 only: USB 1.1 (client only) and full-sized SD slot.
All of the software content for the original Leapster was created with Macromedia Flash MX 2004; the device runs an embedded Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash player
Adobe Flash Player
The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing multimedia, Rich Internet Applications and streaming video and audio, on a computer web browser or on supported mobile devices. Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other...
.
Tom Prichard, Sr. Vice President of Marketing for Leapfrog, stated that he believed using Flash allowed them to "bring the Leapster system to life more rapidly than we could have with any other development method.”