Game platforms like Roblox and Minecraft are becoming more popular among young children, and platforms like YouTube consume daily screen time, making Edtech companies a challenge when attracting attention I’m facing it.
Polymath aims to tackle this by combining gamerized mechanics inspired by these popular games with adaptive mathematics lessons to make the learning experience more enjoyable.
The educational sandbox game allows children to customize their avatars, use bricks and other materials, and explore virtual islands where they can interact with villagers. To progress through the game, children must complete math-related questions. This ensures you stay focused on your educational goals.
The startup announced its $1 million pre-seed funding round on Monday. This will help the platform reach additional markets. The Rays were co-led by Blackbird Ventures and GD1. In particular, Liam Don, Chief Technology Officer at Classdojo, is an angel investor.
Polymath co-founder and CEO Sophie Silver studied human learning, memory and developmental psychology at University College London (UCL). While working as a part-time nanny during her research, she noticed a gap in the child’s mathematical abilities and found it increasingly difficult to entertain lessons for them.
“The kids didn’t really enjoy math, so I mainly start inventing games with cards and dice, trying to motivate them to multiply and do what they need,” says Sophie. Silver told TechCrunch. “[I realized] The way these kids are learning is not consistent with how the brain works. ”
Polymath uses adaptive algorithms to personalize each child’s learning based on their progress. The company analyzes children’s responses to identify the best questions to ask next, recognize knowledge gaps, and optimize the timing of new information to ensure that children are not overwhelmed.
In addition to the core math lesson features, there are learning opportunities in the virtual world. For example, if a player wants to build a house in the game, they will need to measure the dimensions and calculate the number of wood blocks they need.
“There are shopkeepers who can buy things like resources from there. They can’t be trusted and give them the wrong price. Each block of wood has five “cubos” (the currency of Polymath) It will take. You are asking to buy a 4, but it is about to charge you 30 Cubo. It’s a moment of critical thinking to help students realize that prices are wrong,” said Christian Silver, co-founder and CTO.
Polymath offers both home and classroom versions. The classroom version allows teachers to monitor students in real time. In this version, all players can work together in a shared space and answer questions at the same time. If there are not enough devices available for the classroom, Polymath has the option to ask players to answer the following questions, so all students are involved:
The at-home version allows parents to manage their child’s experience and receive weekly email reports on their child’s progress. There is also a parent app, Polymath Relate. Here you can see detailed answers to all the questions the parents answered by their children.
Additionally, children can connect with Polymath friends using unique friend codes. However, when playing in multiplayer mode, the chat function is not available.
Polymath was launched in January 2023 through Startmate Accelerator in New Zealand. It attracts thousands of users from Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, Virginia, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Future plans for the game include expanding the curriculum to provide more advanced learning opportunities and allowing for collaborative play where children can collaborate with issues. Additionally, Polymath plans to introduce avatar assets that can be purchased as a source of revenue for the future.
Polymath is free to play on web, iOS and Android devices.
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