Gsoc 2014 - 'Learn from Map' application

[Harsh Singhal]

Hello,

I am student of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. I am pursuing a 5 year course (B.Tech  + M.Tech) in Computer Science and Engineering, and I am currently in my 4th year. 

I developed an Android application related to health care as my project at IIT Delhi last year. Since then, the area of Android application development really excited me. I also used the Google Maps API in my project, so I have a fair experience with that. 

I have some interesting ideas for the 'Learn from Map' application which I would like to discuss.

1). Firstly, geography does not only mean to know which place lies where on the map. It is a lot more. To be able to address this important issue, I would suggest the following modules in our app. This is an initial list. More can be added later. Also, I am taking the liberty of having questions that don't only have locations as answers, but other forms of answers as well (This can be corrected upon if it is an essential requirement)

a) Political geography module (the standard what lies where on the world map) - This module will ask questions by 2 ways, pointing to locations on the map, and asking what geographical entity lies there, and given the location, pointing where it lies on the map. The beginners level would include asking about continents and countries. The medium level would include popular cities around the globe. The advanced level can have states/ provinces of different countries.

b) Climate module - Climate is an essential part of geography. This module can ask questions of the form of what can of climate is found in what regions of the world. Each question can have options like temperate, tropical, etc. The module can also include short tutorials to facilitate learning about climates, like what kind of climate is found near sea, what kind of climate is found near equator, etc.

c) Geology module - This module will ask questions about which rivers, mountains ranges, deserts, etc lie in which part of the world.

d) Natural resources module - This module will have questions about what kind of natural resources are found in different parts of the world like coal, gold, diamond, petroleum, etc.

e) Popular locations module (optional) - This module will be about popular locations/tourist destinations across the globe. It it would be a mix of geography and GK. The questions can be as follows - Identify the city which has Qutab Minar, Red Fort and Lotus temple (the answer being New Delhi).

2). There will be huge focus on making the app as fun as possible. This is very important for making children to use the app. So there would be all the standard fun properties, like daily/weekly  challenges, locked levels, hints, earning points to unlock more hints, etc.

3) The modularisation, as discussed above, will also facilitate the AI part. Lets consider for example the geology module. Each country/continent will have a list of rivers, mountains ranges, deserts, etc. and their location associated with it. So when the user wants to answer questions about that particular continent/country, questions can be automatically generated using this list, and an internal database of keywords.

Please comment about the ideas, so that I can explore further.

Regards,

Harsh Singhal

[Harsh Singhal]

Dear Neha Dhanwani Ma'm,

Could you please provide some feedback.

Regards,

Harsh

[Pankaj Nathani]

Hi Harsh,

Thanks for your introduction. I like your ideas.. I also like the one about popular location / monuments that you have mentioned as optional 

2). There will be huge focus on making the app as fun as possible. This is very important for making children to use the app. So there would be all the standard fun properties, like daily/weekly  challenges, locked levels, hints, earning points to unlock more hints, etc.

Sure, it's important to make the game fun. Incorporating all of the above may be too much though.. can you be selective about what fun factors you want the game to have.. rather than all the 'standard properties'.

3) The modularisation, as discussed above, will also facilitate the AI part. Lets consider for example the geology module. Each country/continent will have a list of rivers, mountains ranges, deserts, etc. and their location associated with it. So when the user wants to answer questions about that particular continent/country, questions can be automatically generated using this list, and an internal database of keywords.

Yes, that's how we would want it.

Let us know if you have any specific questions. If not, please put together a proposal for the project and submit for review: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/buildmlearn/droaQTxy7aU/L1aQ_aJYxSUJ