Cupertino, California – In response to King Ptolemy’s insistence that there must be a way to learn geometry without putting in effort and hard work, Euclid is reported to have said “there is no royal road to geometry.” Well, fast forward about 2300 years, and while there still is no royal road, there is indeed an innovative cyber highway to this stimulating branch of mathematics thanks to the brilliantly original new universal iOS app Euclidea from HORIS International Ltd (HIL).
The first thing to note that users who suffer from math-phobia have nothing to fear: yes, Euclidea is educational, but it’s fundamentally a game, which means that the overall experience is fun and friendly – in fact, Non-Trivial Games praised the app as “an absolute joy to play”.
Here’s how the app works: users must solve interesting challenges by building geometric constructions – such as angle bisectors, perpendiculars, parallel lines, inscribed figures, and so on – with a straightedge and compass. Users who design the most elegantly simple solutions in the least number of moves earn the highest scores. Solutions are scored in lines (L) and elementary Euclidean constructions (E).
Notably, Euclidea doesn’t throw users into the deep end of the math pool and expect them to swim or sink. Instead, it starts out with simple challenges that guide users through the basics. Once the fundamentals are mastered, users move on to tougher, more mind-bending challenges such as inner/outer tangents, regular polygons, and more. Plus, when certain significant constructions are learned – such as angle bisectors, non-collapsing compass, and so on – they’re automatically added to the interface’s shortcut, which helps users save time and allows them to create clean, uncluttered drawings.
In addition, unlike conventional geometric constructions that are drawn on paper and therefore static and unchangeable, Euclidea-created constructions are completely dynamic. As such, users can drag to adjust angles, lines, radii and so on. They can also easily zoom and pan. This not only makes the experience more interactive, but it allows users to more deeply grasp the relationships between geometric elements, explore various possibilities, and analyze errors.
Another welcome feature is that users don’t have to spend time or effort trying to achieve perfect precision, because Euclidea automatically handles that task by pinning points, lines and circles to the app’s clean interface. In this way, users can simply and enjoyably focus on using their straightedge and compass to design, solve, construct, and of course, have fun along the way. They can even compete with friends and track achievements via the Game Center.
Other Euclidea special features include:
* 75 unique challenges in total, which are organized in packs for simpler navigation
* A helpful “Explore” mode that allows users to see the figure they need to construct, which simplifies the process and allows them to verify their hypotheses
* The ability to earn coins for solving problems, which users can spend to buy hints in other challenges
* An inventory of tools that users must create as they progress, which they will need to solve future challenges
* Some challenges can be solved in more than one way, which means users can try a different approach and have even more fun
Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
* Requires iOS 7.0 or later
* Universal Application
* 23.4 MB
Pricing and Availability:
Euclidea 2.07, the brilliantly original new app that makes creating Euclidian constructions fun and challenging, is only $0.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Education category.
Euclidea 2.07
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HORIS International Ltd. was founded by a group of highly qualified professionals who love mathematics and programming. All Material and Software (C) Copyright 2015 HORIS International Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks may be the property of their respective owners.