Math By Design

Maryland Public Television


Created for long-time client Maryland Public Television, this highly interactive, animated site encourages middle-school students to use their math skills to build a skateboard ramp, dig a fish pond and other fun outdoor elements in several fictional towns.

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Awards

  • Interactive Media Awards: Outstanding Achievement: Kids (2009)
  • Web Marketing Association WebAwards: Outstanding Achievement (2010)

Tags

Animation, Graphic Design, Interactives / Games, Programming / Database, Site Architecture, Usability / Accessibility, User Interface Design, Kids, Education, Television & Film

<p>As part of the fictional TRC Architect firm, students can choose to help two environments that need the enhancements that only math problem-solving can provide. How do you make math fun? By creating games and challenges like  figuring out the optimal space for a garden or how much paint is needed to reline the basketball court.</p> <p>Can you figure out the right place to put the skate park to maximize its size? What size should the pond will fit between the park pathways? Whether helping to build a park and or an environmental center, the interactives offer fun task-based math problems to refine and build upon their knowledge of geometry and measurement.</p> <p>Behind the slick design is a robust login and tracking system that allows users to pick up where they left off, track completed tasks across both environments and print out status reports and completion certificates.</p> <p>Contextual math tutorials help students figure out the proper approach and calculations needed to complete each step.</p>

Case Study

Challenges

Math by Design is a highly interactive, flash-based site created to encourage middle-school students to problem solve and think critically as they encounter unique geometry and measurement challenges. As a junior architect of a fictional firm, students encounter specific design problems facing a community park and an environmental center. In these two environments, students must use their math skills to build a skateboard ramp, dig a fish pond, plan a picnic area, and other fun outdoor elements.

Chief among our challenges for this project was creating a set of 30+ design tasks that not only satisfied the education goals (all tasks and content in Math by Design with Maryland and national standards in math and technology) but most importantly, was FUN TO PLAY!

Bean Creative maintains active project logs and timelines on our behalf and are extraordinarily accurate and timely in meeting deadlines. Bean staff checks and double-checks all materials in conception, development and deployment. Bean personnel have always gone the extra mile in all our projects… even when the contract did not call for “extras,” we would always find a way to work it through together.

– Ann Klimas, Director, Educational Content and Instructional Design, MPT


Solutions

The two environments are housed within an interface designed to engage our target audience and reinforce the high-tech feel associated with the fictional TRC Architect firm. Behind the slick design is a robust login and tracking system that allows users to pick up where they left off, track completed tasks across both environments and print out status reports and completion certificates.

The interactives in both environments are supported with task-specific hints (designed to point you in the direction of the correct answer—not to give it to you!), tools such as a calculator and compass, isometric design views of your work space, fun interstitial animations when a task is completed and an ultimate reward of seeing your redesigned work space in full animated glory!


Results

With its fun gameplay elements and embedded, contextual help, Math by Design has become a middle school teacher’s dream by providing complex mathematical education within an edutainment environment.

The ability to play two different game challenges and save your progress along the way makes learning enjoyable and intuitive!


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