Count on Me

For decades, Latin America's childhood has been suffering overexposure to memorization techniques in education. At some point, it seems that memorization turns out into the primary resource in mathematics teaching-learning processes. Multiplication tables are a clear example. Despite the fundamental role of memory in cognitive processing, modern approaches such as Singapore Maths empathize the importance of breaking the abstraction layer of mathematics through concrete objects. Singapore is proving that education can be chance positivly we believe that we can unite our effort to do some positive contributions too.

Count on Me is an initiative that will empower children to break the Mathematics barriers on their own from the early stages of life. Our contribution is based on an interactive game composed by an electronic board and blocks that represent digits from 1 to 10 so children can perform addition, substraction and multiplication operations while the board acts a translator from numeric objects to visual matematical simbolization.

Pisa tests results show consistent general low performance in Mathematics, science, and reading from 2000 to date. Evaluations like Saber in Colombia and Enlace test in Mexico, just to mention two of them, also show that the scores decrease from the basic grades to secondary and preparatory. Mathematics and science courses are by far the ones that reprobate more students every year. 

In summary, due to the lack of solid mathematical fundaments, hundreds of thousands of students can't access university or abandon their studies causing a high social impact.

Contribute to people to enjoy mathematics can help next generations to be competitive on a global scale.  

Count on me is an interactive electronic game that works like Lego, which means that Count on Me has two parts: One board and several blocks that represent numbers from 1 to 10. The board recognizes the number and the pattern and displays the result of a sort of basic operations like addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

Children are more willing to learn through playing. Count on Me is designed in a Lego-like format so children are exposed not a memorization environment but a creative environment, on the other hand, the interaction with physical objects is a proven technique that helps to break highly abstraction layers of knowledge or "reality" in this case the abstraction of number has been traditionally managed through visual language, so a number like 1 doesn't really mean nothing but and arbitrary symbol, so children have been learning for generations only to deal with some arbitrary symbols and some others arbitrary rules but the perception that numbers are something almost unreal.

Count on me can help children to early break those kinds of barriers in the maybe the most important stage of cognitive processing and formation. 

Count on Me is an educational and didactic product by definition. From the very beginning Count on Me was designed as the result of a personal quest, since I was dissatisfied with the method of explaining multiplication, addition, and subtraction to children from 4 to 10 years old.

The approach of Count on Me can easily fit in several of the TPrize categories, for instance:

• The board is designed to work in online mode or offline mode and promotes the concept of self-learning
• Since the game is completely portable can be used almost everywhere, from home or school you choose.
• Can help teachers, tutors, and parents. 

The current version of prototyping is the 3rth, the 1sth, and 2dth were more like proof of concept, however, the current PCB layer version is professionally manufactured, electronic components and parts have the actual dimensions of Lego Duplo blocks and is functional in about 80%. In summary, the hardware layer is almost complete, the software layer is 50% of the advance, and the case is being designed and will be 3D printed ins about 2 months.

The application of the concept of Tangible User Interfaces and IA to an interactive board applied to mathematics preschool teaching is something innovative.

Sensors, AI, Tangible Interfaces.