If you ever played Super Mario Brothers or Mario Galaxy, you probably thought it was only a fun videogame—but fun can be serious.  Super Mario has lessons to teach you might not expect about graphics and the concepts behind them.

The basics of image technology (and then some) can all be explained with a little help from everybody’s favorite little plumber. So read on to see what we can learn from Mario about pixels, polygons, computers and math, as well as dispelling a common misconception about those blocky old graphics we remember from when me first met Mario.