Tux Math - review

You may have never heard of Tux Math, but among Linux users it's a fairly well-known children's arcade game for math facts practice.

My girls remembered about it just lately  and have had somewhat of a frenzy of practice sessions with it. It's simple, free, yet fun. So I decided to give you, my readers, a quick review of it.

You "shoot" meteorites that are falling down by answering math problems (type the problem's answer and press Enter/Return). If you can't answer one, the meteorite does some damage to one of the penguin's igloo. Then after enough damage, the penguin in that igloo leaves (walks away).

But, once you answer a red "fiery" question that falls down real quick, you can get a cloud that comes and fixes the igloo. Then your penguin comes back! I think that's so cute!! You can only lose if all your penguins go away.


The background is always an image from space.

The options include any of the four operations, or have them mixed. You can practice specific times tables for example, which is good for my younger daughter at this time. As you go along in a game, then the questions start coming down quicker. At first they come down quite slow.

There's a training section, and there's a section where it gives you random questions. In that one, you play as long as you want, and when you stop, it'll tell you if you are in the top ten highest scores for you. If so, then you go in the "hall of fame."

Once you finish any particular type of problems (for ex. addition 0-5 or multiplication by 4), the star for that turns glowing yellow, and that's what my kids are after--they want to turn all those stars yellow. That's only in the training part, though. In the training part you have to answer a certain amount of questions.

You can make as many new "accounts" as you want and fill the "hall of fame" with you and your various nicknames.

It's just simple free game for math practice; there are no special features such as reports or training the facts you answer wrong.

Tux Math, or Tux of Math Command is software that is available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Download it here.

Tux Math - review

You may have never heard of Tux Math, but among Linux users it's a fairly well-known children's arcade game for math facts practice.

My girls remembered about it just lately  and have had somewhat of a frenzy of practice sessions with it. It's simple, free, yet fun. So I decided to give you, my readers, a quick review of it.

You "shoot" meteorites that are falling down by answering math problems (type the problem's answer and press Enter/Return). If you can't answer one, the meteorite does some damage to one of the penguin's igloo. Then after enough damage, the penguin in that igloo leaves (walks away).

But, once you answer a red "fiery" question that falls down real quick, you can get a cloud that comes and fixes the igloo. Then your penguin comes back! I think that's so cute!! You can only lose if all your penguins go away.


The background is always an image from space.

The options include any of the four operations, or have them mixed. You can practice specific times tables for example, which is good for my younger daughter at this time. As you go along in a game, then the questions start coming down quicker. At first they come down quite slow.

There's a training section, and there's a section where it gives you random questions. In that one, you play as long as you want, and when you stop, it'll tell you if you are in the top ten highest scores for you. If so, then you go in the "hall of fame."

Once you finish any particular type of problems (for ex. addition 0-5 or multiplication by 4), the star for that turns glowing yellow, and that's what my kids are after--they want to turn all those stars yellow. That's only in the training part, though. In the training part you have to answer a certain amount of questions.

You can make as many new "accounts" as you want and fill the "hall of fame" with you and your various nicknames.

It's just simple free game for math practice; there are no special features such as reports or training the facts you answer wrong.

Tux Math, or Tux of Math Command is software that is available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Download it here.

Review of Math Rider software

If your children like horses, they might fall in love with Math Rider game!

Math Rider is a "math facts" software game; that is, it specifically trains and practices the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.

Some special features include:

• Each player has their own "account" in the game, and Math Rider is adaptive in that it trains those facts more that the child misses. I feel this is a great and important feature. More on that below...
  
  
• I also really liked the statistics. You can see a color-coded chart that shows what facts the child has mastered, what s/he has some trouble with, and what s/he has lots of trouble with. Also, after each ride, the game shows you a bar chart with a bar for each fact in that ride. The taller the bar, the longer the child took to solve the fact.

Here is the home screen. Click to enlarge.



The gameplay is centered around "quests". The player sets up a "quest" by choosing which operation to practice, and on which level. From there, the game first shows a storyline for a few screens.

Then starts the practice, in which a horse jumps a hurdle every time you solve a math fact correctly. If you answer wrong, the horse doesn't whinny but snorts, and you might have time to correct your answer. If you don't, or if you can't answer a problem at all, the horse stops at the hurdle and tells you the answer, and walks through the hurdle instead of jumping it.

The program adapts the problems as you go. The problems you miss or are slow at keep appearing more often than others. The speed adapts, too. If you are fast in answering, the problems appear faster and the horse rides faster, and vice versa.



These rides are 30 problems "long." After a ride of 30 problems, you can check your progress on the "quest" on a map. The backgrounds and hurdles on these rides vary as you proceed and travel through different landscapes. Completing the quest takes several of these 30-fact rides. Once you complete the quest, you are shown several more screens of the storyline to learn how it ends, and you get a special reward item.

The storylines include for example a sick mother, for whom you need to find a special flower, or you find a magical gem that a wizard tells you keeps darkness away, and you have to deliver the gem to the elven city. On the advanced level, you get to rescue a princess.

Personally I didn't care for the wizard/magic story, but you can easily fast forward through these short stories

You can read more about the game play on the Math Rider site.

The motivational reward items include points you get from riding, and the animated items you get from completing quests (flowers, flags, a castle, etc.). Additionally, the program tracks the "mastery" level of each operation and shows that in the animated items.

This is how the statistics looks like:


Both of my girls liked the game really well. They played and played and had to be dragged away from the computer!

My 5th grader already knows the basic facts pretty well, so for her the game was mostly fun with a little bit of review. She liked the changing backgrounds and the music. I really liked the music too (you can turn it off if you don't).

My 2nd grader just did addition and subtraction, and I feel the game did some good in helping her get speedier with her facts. They both liked best the different animated reward items you get when you finish the quests, such as flowers and flags.

It could be improved by adding more storylines. Right now, there is one story for any of the "easy" levels, no matter what the operation, and similarly for the other levels.


Also, I personally feel that children would benefit a lot from practicing the addition and multiplication facts using missing addends and factors (practicing "in reverse"). For example, in multiplication, the game could use 5 x ___ = 25, and in addition, it could use 6 + ___ = 13 types of problems.

I feel the game is well done and serves very well the purpose of practicing math facts and getting "up to speed" with them.  The adaptive features work well and really help the mastery to come to pass.

Of course there are so many different games and ways to practice math facts that it's hard to choose! I hope my review helps you in deciding if this game would be for you. I can definitely recommend it for what it does.

Website: MathRider.com Price: $37.


Disclosure: I was given a copy of Math Rider software for free but did not receive any other compensation.

Review of Math Rider software

If your children like horses, they might fall in love with Math Rider game!

Math Rider is a "math facts" software game; that is, it specifically trains and practices the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.

Some special features include:

• Each player has their own "account" in the game, and Math Rider is adaptive in that it trains those facts more that the child misses. I feel this is a great and important feature. More on that below...
  
  
• I also really liked the statistics. You can see a color-coded chart that shows what facts the child has mastered, what s/he has some trouble with, and what s/he has lots of trouble with. Also, after each ride, the game shows you a bar chart with a bar for each fact in that ride. The taller the bar, the longer the child took to solve the fact.

Here is the home screen. Click to enlarge.



The gameplay is centered around "quests". The player sets up a "quest" by choosing which operation to practice, and on which level. From there, the game first shows a storyline for a few screens.

Then starts the practice, in which a horse jumps a hurdle every time you solve a math fact correctly. If you answer wrong, the horse doesn't whinny but snorts, and you might have time to correct your answer. If you don't, or if you can't answer a problem at all, the horse stops at the hurdle and tells you the answer, and walks through the hurdle instead of jumping it.

The program adapts the problems as you go. The problems you miss or are slow at keep appearing more often than others. The speed adapts, too. If you are fast in answering, the problems appear faster and the horse rides faster, and vice versa.



These rides are 30 problems "long." After a ride of 30 problems, you can check your progress on the "quest" on a map. The backgrounds and hurdles on these rides vary as you proceed and travel through different landscapes. Completing the quest takes several of these 30-fact rides. Once you complete the quest, you are shown several more screens of the storyline to learn how it ends, and you get a special reward item.

The storylines include for example a sick mother, for whom you need to find a special flower, or you find a magical gem that a wizard tells you keeps darkness away, and you have to deliver the gem to the elven city. On the advanced level, you get to rescue a princess.

Personally I didn't care for the wizard/magic story, but you can easily fast forward through these short stories

You can read more about the game play on the Math Rider site.

The motivational reward items include points you get from riding, and the animated items you get from completing quests (flowers, flags, a castle, etc.). Additionally, the program tracks the "mastery" level of each operation and shows that in the animated items.

This is how the statistics looks like:


Both of my girls liked the game really well. They played and played and had to be dragged away from the computer!

My 5th grader already knows the basic facts pretty well, so for her the game was mostly fun with a little bit of review. She liked the changing backgrounds and the music. I really liked the music too (you can turn it off if you don't).

My 2nd grader just did addition and subtraction, and I feel the game did some good in helping her get speedier with her facts. They both liked best the different animated reward items you get when you finish the quests, such as flowers and flags.

It could be improved by adding more storylines. Right now, there is one story for any of the "easy" levels, no matter what the operation, and similarly for the other levels.


Also, I personally feel that children would benefit a lot from practicing the addition and multiplication facts using missing addends and factors (practicing "in reverse"). For example, in multiplication, the game could use 5 x ___ = 25, and in addition, it could use 6 + ___ = 13 types of problems.

I feel the game is well done and serves very well the purpose of practicing math facts and getting "up to speed" with them.  The adaptive features work well and really help the mastery to come to pass.

Of course there are so many different games and ways to practice math facts that it's hard to choose! I hope my review helps you in deciding if this game would be for you. I can definitely recommend it for what it does.

Website: MathRider.com Price: $37.


Disclosure: I was given a copy of Math Rider software for free but did not receive any other compensation.

Ultimate Papercraft 3D

Been wanting to post this for a couple days now, keep forgetting though, thanks to everyone that e-mailed it in. Please take note that this post is a preview and not a review.

This is the Ultimate Papercraft 3D software from Brad Bolthouse. Those in the 3D community might know Mr. Bolthouse from his previous works such as the Ultimate Unwrap 3D and LithUnwrap.

Details about Ultimate Papercraft 3D from the official site.

DESCRIPTION:
Ultimate Papercraft 3D is a specialty Windows tool for creating papercraft from 3D models. It includes an easy-to-use layout editor for bringing your papercraft designs to reality and a 3D window for viewing your 3D models. It is ideal for artists, professionals, modellers, and hobbyists, and easy enough to use for all levels of computer users.

FEATURES:
Create papercraft from 3D models.
Easy-to-use layout editor.
Easily unfold edges with a single click.
Print your layout directly to the printer.
Export your layout to high resolution bitmaps.
Mark vertex edges for cutting prior to unfolding.
Customize the shape, size, and color of edge flaps.
Add edge padding to offset paper cutting errors.
Layout includes gridlines and object snapping.
Identify adjoining flap edges by numbers.
Align and orient parts automatically.
Add text and pictures to your layout.
99 level undo system by number or storage.
Export your layout to BMP, DXF, EPS, and EMF formats.
DXF files compatible with ROBO Master and ROBO Master Pro.
Material editor for editing material and texture properties.
3D editing tools include triangulating, flipping, welding,
unwelding of vertices and faces.
Import formats includes Collada DAE, Autodesk FBX/3DS, Autocad DXF, Lightwave LWO, WaveFront OBJ, DirectX, Stereo Lithography STL, Metasequoia MQO, and Ultimate Unwrap3D U3D.
Export formats includes Windows Bitmap BMP, Autocad DXF, WaveFront OBJ, Encapsulated EPS, Windows Metafile EMF, and Postscript PDF(using PDFCreator).

Some screenshots:




Ultimate Papercraft 3D is a promising new alternative to the de facto standard Pepakura Designer (PD), it pretty much has the same features but with some new stuff (outlined above). I encourage the designers to download the demo and try it out. It's free to try and $39.95 to buy.

Will it unseat Pepakura in its unfolding throne? only time will tell. Do remember that Pepakura has a 10 year head start - it was called Tenkai back then.

Ultimate Papercraft 3D v.1.0

Math Mammoth news

I've made a partnership with Scott from Softbasics to offer additional bonus software for those who buy any Math Mammoth CD product or the Blue Series download.

In essence, by buying any of the CDs, or the Blue Series download, you will also get a bundle of 7 software products (math, L&A, testing):

The Soft-Pak contains:

• Math Maker - printable worksheets/activities with answer keys.


• Math Master - same activities as Math Maker, but on-screen.


• Math User - on-screen program for solving the 900 multi-level word problems (also printable in Math Maker) with a built-in calculator.


• True/False Math Challenger - on-screen program for answering math questions that are either True or False using motivational activities. Includes math "facts" that are either true or false.


• Language Arts Master - covers spelling and reading (over 4000 words included) plus usage, writing mechanics, reading speed and recall, and a non-threatening grammar section: parts of speech, subjects and predicates, phrases and clauses, and sentence structure. Printable activities with answer keys.



• Test Maker - used to CREATE personal word lists for use in LA Master spelling and reading. Also used to create True/False and Multiple Choice activities for use in Test Master.


• Test Master - on-screen program for answering the True/False and Multiple Choice questions created in Test Maker. Any subject (geography, history, science, foreign language etc may be addressed). Printable activities as well.

See more info and screenshots.

Otherwise I've been busy preparing the complete curriculum for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade that will be sold at Winterpromise. It going slower than I thought... Well, that probably happens to many people who start new projects. You never quite anticipate all the hurdles and how much time this or that takes.

It took me a long time making the measuring / geometry section for 2nd grade. I was trying hard to think what kind of lessons would get kids familiar with inches, kilograms, pounds, milliliters, etc.

You know, I don't think you get a good feel of measuring if you don't go do it and measure! Just doing paper and pencil problems won't get you there. So I tried to think up little measuring projects and things that mothers and children can do at home, and that help the children learn about various measuring units.

Right now I'm writing something way easier, which is early multiplication lessons. In comparison, it's a breeze.

Also, I am overseeing all this translating work that's happening all around me (it seems). One person is translating the books to Spanish, another to French, and a third one is checking and fixing the layout after all those looonnng Spanish and French words are in there. You know, they don't always fit into my 'boxes', pages flow over etc.

So I'm keeping busy. Anticipate several new products in June!

Math Mammoth news

I've made a partnership with Scott from Softbasics to offer additional bonus software for those who buy any Math Mammoth CD product or the Blue Series download.

In essence, by buying any of the CDs, or the Blue Series download, you will also get a bundle of 7 software products (math, L&A, testing):

The Soft-Pak contains:

• Math Maker - printable worksheets/activities with answer keys.


• Math Master - same activities as Math Maker, but on-screen.


• Math User - on-screen program for solving the 900 multi-level word problems (also printable in Math Maker) with a built-in calculator.


• True/False Math Challenger - on-screen program for answering math questions that are either True or False using motivational activities. Includes math "facts" that are either true or false.


• Language Arts Master - covers spelling and reading (over 4000 words included) plus usage, writing mechanics, reading speed and recall, and a non-threatening grammar section: parts of speech, subjects and predicates, phrases and clauses, and sentence structure. Printable activities with answer keys.



• Test Maker - used to CREATE personal word lists for use in LA Master spelling and reading. Also used to create True/False and Multiple Choice activities for use in Test Master.


• Test Master - on-screen program for answering the True/False and Multiple Choice questions created in Test Maker. Any subject (geography, history, science, foreign language etc may be addressed). Printable activities as well.

See more info and screenshots.

Otherwise I've been busy preparing the complete curriculum for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade that will be sold at Winterpromise. It going slower than I thought... Well, that probably happens to many people who start new projects. You never quite anticipate all the hurdles and how much time this or that takes.

It took me a long time making the measuring / geometry section for 2nd grade. I was trying hard to think what kind of lessons would get kids familiar with inches, kilograms, pounds, milliliters, etc.

You know, I don't think you get a good feel of measuring if you don't go do it and measure! Just doing paper and pencil problems won't get you there. So I tried to think up little measuring projects and things that mothers and children can do at home, and that help the children learn about various measuring units.

Right now I'm writing something way easier, which is early multiplication lessons. In comparison, it's a breeze.

Also, I am overseeing all this translating work that's happening all around me (it seems). One person is translating the books to Spanish, another to French, and a third one is checking and fixing the layout after all those looonnng Spanish and French words are in there. You know, they don't always fit into my 'boxes', pages flow over etc.

So I'm keeping busy. Anticipate several new products in June!