StartupCafe

Congratulations to our own Kate Ho of Interface3 for winning 1st place in the SMART Multitouch Application Contest. Kate’s submission of a new musical game Chromabeats was declared the winner this evening in the global competition.

The challenge was to design and build a multi-touch application for the child education market, which turned out to be a very involved task. Bringing onboard a few interns to help in the early stages, Kate started by speaking with school teachers to identify unmet needs that a multitouch app might be able to address.

I nosily watched the application take shape, and Kate walked (or rather, flew) the team through the stages of rapid prototyping. Apparently it worked!

The resulting app is a fun way for kids to learn music notation. The name, Chromabeats, reflects the fusion of colour and music to make learning easier. In the game, kids transition from playing coloured shapes to coloured notes, then to coloured notes on a staff, and finally black notes on a staff. Anyone else having flashbacks to “All Cows Eat Grass” at music lessons? Ok, nevermind, but this was better. While Kate would probably tell you it’s designed for kids 4-11, I had fun playing for a while too.

So, how about that prize? Yes, Kate won her company a SMART Table! I’m told it takes 8 weeks to ship, but will surely be a prized possession and will help Interface3 with development/testing of additional multitouch apps. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to wait that long to see Chromabeats in action – you can check out the demo online and see why it was so entertaining. Thanks for winning, Kate, I’m excited to see the table!