Project Numeric Blocks
This project is currently under discussion as our submission for the March 2011 Hackerspace Challenge. It is competing with two other projects, which are being discussed and prototyped in parallel.
Project summary
A set of blocks that engage the participant in educational exercises. They are a tactile interface, reminiscent of the alphabet blocks that many kids play with, and they become way more exciting when you throw in a microcontroller, a few sensors, and feedback components. Our current design has only numeric display and the proposed exercises are about numbers, counting, sets, fractions, and arithmetic.
Our design priorities for this project are:
- Stay focused on numbers, keeping the exercises simple to internationalize.
- Prototype fast; optimize cost later.
- Quickly design an API, so that a content team can start working in parallel.
- Make it easy to program in the field, with hopes of starting a community of content producers.
- Keep the design flexible, so that lower cost parts can later be substituted.
- Concentrate the expensive parts in a "master station" and minimize the cost per block, allowing for affordable exercises that involve many blocks
Status update
We had very productive conversations at SplatSpace on Tuesday, April 5, 2011. Justis is planning to enter notes here with more details about the project.
History
This project was first proposed by Justis Peters as one of the candidate projects for the March 2011 Hackerspace Challenge.
