Consider the world through the eyes of Finley, a friendly, blue, skateboarding chinchilla. They need help wrapping birthday gifts. They need a ramp to practice their skateboarding skills. And they would love a companion to try out their new carnival game.
The challenges Finley needs help to overcome are part of a new gaming app created by second-year master's students at Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center. Now available in the Google Play and Apple App stores, WanderMath invites middle schoolers to solve math problems using augmented reality.
From inspiration to playtesting, co-producer Katherine Wheeler said it has been a whirlwind semester.
"We had to understand open-ended math and consider how a kid might think about it," she said. "Then we designed around the realities of a public school and the kinds of devices they might have available."