Algoryx sparked a lot of interest at BETT, the world’s largest education and technology fair, when they demonstrated the new teaching platform Algodoo. A long line of educationalists, physics teachers and IT developers who had found their way to the big conference stopped by at the exhibition stand to acquaint themselves with the new digital program, which is both a game and a learning platform for physics.
The interactive attracts
- Most people are very fascinated by the interactive part; the fact that you can draw a circle and throw it away, so it becomes a ball in the air. And the way you can press the play button to make things drop down and bounce, depending on how you’ve drawn them, says Jonatan Persson, employee at Algoryx.
He has just landed in Umeå after an intense week in London with the rest of the Algoryx team behind Algodoo. Educationalists and developers from all over the world participated in the conference, including a large number of Swedes. Jonathan is a little surprised that so many people from Sweden found their way to BETT. Only from Västerbotten, over a hundred educationalists and school managers had taken the opportunity to travel down to London.
Algodoo is designed to encourage young people’s own creativity, ability and motivation to construct knowledge.
Algodoo’s target group is children aged 7 to 15 years, and the program can be used both on large interactive blackboards and on personal computers. Algoryx is already collaborating with Intel, who wants to equip their Classmate PC computer with the program. Smart Technologies, a world-leading company in interactive blackboards for schools, is also very interested in the program.
- David Martin, the founder of Smart Technologies, actually used Algodoo at BETT when he showed what their interactive blackboards can be used for. And Intel has also used Algodoo in demonstrations, so we’re getting a lot of help to distribute the product, says Kenneth Bodin, CEO of Algoryx.
Explaining everyday physics
Algodoo is a 2-D simulation environment that enables you to create interactive scenarios in a playful way, with the help of a computer. Running water, a bouncing ball, an accelerating car, or a rocket launched into the air; all of it is physic, and all of it is possible to simulate in Algodoo in a playful way. And precisely that is the key to Algodoo’s success – its easy and instructive way of simulating and explaining everyday physics.
- At the conference, a little boy came up and started using Algodoo. It looked as if he’d used it before, but when I asked him he told me he was a beginner. And yet he learned how to use it straight away, Jonatan Persson recounts.
- Small children should play their way to knowledge. When you’re seven you can use Algodoo to understand that there are movements, that things can bounce off each other, and that they bounce in different ways depending on the material. All of these experiments you can play your way through, and then when you’re a couple of years older you can advance with the program to learn more about the physical powers behind it all, says Kenneth Bodin.
More school ventures
Algodoo is now fully developed for the market and Algoryx has hired Lucia Jonsson as the marketing director to introduce the learning platform to schools.
- We would love to see a special venture among the Umeå schools, and we are also prepared to finance school projects related to physics, using Algodoo, explains Kenneth Bodin.
With that kind of venture, it might very well be in the Umeå region that the next generation of physicists and natural scientists will be found.
