Polymath aims to make mathematics learning as pleasant as Roblox with its educational sandbox game

While play platforms like Roblox and Minecraft continue to gain popularity with young children, and with platforms like YouTube consuming hours of their daily screen time, EDTECH companies are confronted with challenges to capture their attention.

Universal spirit aims to solve this problem by combining gamified mechanisms inspired by these popular games with adaptive mathematics lessons to make the learning experience more pleasant.

The educational sandbox game allows children to explore a virtual island where they can personalize avatars, build with bricks and other materials and interact with the villagers. To progress in the game, children must answer questions related to mathematics, which guarantees that they remain focused on their educational objectives.

The startup announced on Monday its pre-series financing cycle of $ 1 million, which will help its platform reach additional markets. The increase was co-directed by Blackbird Ventures and GD1. In particular, Liam Don, Director of Technology at Classdojo, is a providential investor.

Sophie Silver, co-founder and CEO of Polymath, studied human learning, memory and development psychology at the University College London (UCL). While working as part -time nanny during her studies, she noticed a gap in the mathematical capacities of children and realized that it became increasingly difficult to make the lessons entertaining for them.

“The children really did not appreciate mathematics, and I would therefore start to invent games, mainly with cards or dice, to try to motivate them to do their multiplication or everything they had to do,” said Sophie Silver at Techcrunch. “”[I realized] The way these children learn is not aligned with the functioning of the brain. »»

Polymathe uses an adaptive algorithm to personalize learning for each child according to their progress. He analyzes children’s responses to identify the best question to ask next, as well as recognition of knowledge gaps and optimization of the calendar of new information to prevent the child from being exceeded, explains the company.

In addition to the basic mathematics lesson function, there are also learning opportunities in the virtual world. For example, if the players want to build a house in the game, they must measure the dimensions and calculate the number of wooden blocks they need.

“There is a merchant where you can buy things like resources, and sometimes this merchant is not reliable and will give you the bad price. Each wood block costs 5 cubos (polymathe currency). You ask to buy 4, but he tries to charge you 30 cubos. It is a moment of critical thinking for the student to recognize that the price is bad, ”said Christian Silver, co-founder and CTO.

Polymath offers both a home version and a class version. The class version allows teachers to monitor students in real time. In this version, all players can work together in a shared space, simultaneously answering the questions. If the classroom does not have enough devices available, Polymath has an option that calls on players to answer the following question, therefore each student is involved.

The home version allows parents to manage their child’s experience and receive weekly email reports on the progress of their child. There is also a parent application, Polymathe Resate, where parents can display detailed answers to each question their child has answered.

In addition, children can connect with a friend on polymathe using a single friend code. However, when reading multiplayer mode, no cat function is available.

Polymath was launched in January 2023 through the startmate accelerator in New Zealand. He raised thousands of users in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and Virginia, as well as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Future plans of the game include expanding the program to offer more advanced learning opportunities and allow a collaborative game, where children can work together on problems. In addition, Polymath plans to introduce buyable avatar assets as a source of income in the future.

Polymath is free to play on the web, iOSAnd Android devices.