Math-Music, serious game design

by | Friday, February 29, 2008

My 8 year old daughter, Shreya, came to me the other day and said that she had designed a learning game. I asked her to draw it out for me and here is what she had created.


The game is called Math Music and I guess, it builds on the Guitar Hero idea, but adds mathematics into the mix. The game-play is that you choose a tune from a list and then specific math problems are shown to to you. If you hit the appropriate button, corresponding to the right answer, on the guitar, the next note of the song will play. The problems keep coming and you need to keep hitting the right answers to keep the tune going.

If you notice, the guitar is 36 inches long – so I guess answers to all her problems have to fall between 1 and 36!

Topics related to this post: Creativity | Design | Fun | Games | Learning | Mathematics | Personal | Technology | Worth Reading

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Technology, creativity & illusion

Marco Tempest is magician who loves technology, or a techno-geek who happens to be a good magician. He brings an unique amalgam of high-tech and magic to his shows (see this article for details), but that is not what is most impressive about his work. What is...

New Gandhi ambigram

The quest for a better design continues... Much better, I think, than my previous attempt

Is the web making us stupid?

... or just narrow? I just discovered Britannica blog, a pretty lively virtual space for intelligent discussion. How I had not come across it earlier is a mystery - but again that is the beauty of the web. Anyway, there is an ongoing discussion there about how the web...

Speculative fiction and the future of learning

Speculative fiction and the future of learning

One of the most fun projects I have been part of was working with authors of speculative fiction around the futures of learning. This was the result of a collaboration with the Center for Science and the Imagination, Slate magazine and New America (supported by the...

Infinite Regress: New ambigram / visual pun

Infinite Regress: New ambigram / visual pun

You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity... The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened — Jorge Luis Borges Borges’ quote of reality being a...

Happy New Year, from the College of Education, MSU

The college of Education at Michigan State University just came out with a video titled Year in Review. You can see the video below. I would like to point out that a couple of projects I am involved with made it into the video. They include the project with the Azim...

Postdictable, the commercials

I had written earlier about the idea of "postdictable" which was defined as something that is "surprising initially, but then understandable with a bit of thought." It lies at the spot between predictability and total chaos. The movie Sixth Sense is postdictable in...

Psychology & torture: A sad mix

Martin Seligman is one of the most eminent psychologists alive today. As his wikipedia page says, "He is well known for his work on the idea of "learned helplessness", and more recently, for his contributions to leadership in the field of Positive Psychology." He has...

5 Comments

  1. gamefx

    Hey.. that was great idea..
    I think it can be implemented into android/iphone apps..
    This is great for train your brain while you enjoy listening to the music.

    Reply
  2. flash games

    Nice idea, and it definitely will keep the math geeks playing all night long, me included!

    Reply
  3. Serhan

    Hey great idea.Someone should create flash version of it

    Reply
  4. Punya Mishra

    Shreya says thanks!! Glad you liked it. ~ punya

    Reply
  5. HabsQ

    really nice idea! 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Serhan Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *