Benesse Corporation

Benesse iPad edutainment app for junior high students

“Kansu Suppli (Function Supplement)” is an iPad application for Shinken Zemi Chugaku Kouza, a correspondence course for middle school students by the Benesse Corporation. This application is designed to foster a deeper and essential understanding of mathematical functions, one of the more difficult topics taught in middle schools, by using typical sample problems to enable the student to actually experience and feel the problem through “seeing,” “thinking,” and “touching.” Takram collaborated with Benesse’s development team from the concept-making stages, and was responsible for the project’s art direction including graphic, animation, video and sound design, as well as user interface design, prototyping, and technical direction.

MISSION: A learning experience that transcends the textbook--experiencing functions and understanding its core essence

“Digi-Suppli” is an application series designed to promote essential understanding in various themes across all academic grade/year curriculums, and foster applied skills through an experience-based learning. “Kansu Suppli” was developed with the goal of guiding students through the field of “functions”--a topic which many find difficult to grasp conceptually--to arrive at an essential understanding.

CONCEPT: Understanding the relationships between scene↔︎formula↔︎graph

This application demonstrates the changes between “storing water in a tank,” “point p moving along the sides of a graphic figure,” and “Mr.A catching up to Mr.B” as animated scenes. Furthermore, by allowing the user to touch and interactively operate these animations, this application enables them to understand how these changes will be expressed as corresponding formulas and graphs.

CONCEPT: Connecting the world of mathematics with reality

Functions are hidden in everyday scenery and actions such as “pouring milk into a glass” and “a train pulling into a platform.” Functions that appear in everyday life are presented not only through interactive animations but also through videos. This enables the user to easily visualize the scene when solving a problem and promotes curiosity and interest in mathematics by taking away the common preconception that mathematics has nothing to do with our daily lives.