Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Interactive: Polyrhthmic fractions

I've been coding again! See my latest maths game below...

I was inspired by how some of favourite musicians (Joanna Newsom)
overlap simple rhythms containing quarter, sixth and eighth notes and make something that is subtly complex and interesting. The above version is a much more advanced version of these polyrhythms.

I thought that this was an interesting way to look at how fractions add up. I also wanted the game to be a little more informal and sand-boxy than the last, so it allows you to try things out and see what works. Have a play:

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Direct students to a fullscreen version with this memorable address: thedrummer.rocks.it

Its not perfect. Some of the problems are solvable, others aren't (because my original file has corrupted!!!)
  • there's no way to tell which achievements you've done (i was implementing this when the file corrupted)
  • you can't save and share your beats, which would have given an incentive to make a good one.
  • the tradeoff with it being informal and intuitive is that its gamable and you can get away with using little fraction knowledge - I would solve this by having a worksheet of questions to answer (but only once people have already got in to playing the game). It feels like a cheap cop-out though. What could I have done to make it organically more challenging/rigorous? I would love your thoughts on this.

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