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Did you see that there's a new Dragonbox next week?


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Awesome. I was just looking to see if there was one today. I still have littles to take advantage of that too. Thanks. :)

 

ETA: Yup, looks like a c-rod game. Too bad it doesn't use the same colors, or I might be swooning right now. Still cool though.

 

I had the same thought about the colors! Isn't orange the international standard color for ten?!?

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I had just bought the 12+dragon box and Elements yesterday and just vaguely seen something about it but didn't pay any attention. Going there now I'm trying to sign up as a Beta Tester and I can't get it to do anything, it would be perfect for my almost 6 year old.

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I had the same thought about the colors! Isn't orange the international standard color for ten?!?

 

Dd uses c-rods all the time and that would drive her nuts.

 

I don't know why Dragonbox didn't just use the c-rod colors. I looked it up and while the word "Cuisinaire" is trademarked, it doesn't appear that there's any kind of patent for the c-rods themselves.

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Since the C-rods are so out of fashion generally, maybe it didn't occur to them to use the same colors? I mean, my guess is that we are literally the *only* group of people who will likely be annoyed by this.

 

Or... is it actually possible that they weren't influenced by the C-rods? It seems really unlikely though - the picture puzzles look exactly like the really old beginning C-rod puzzles like the ones in this old book:

http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Puzzles-with-Cuisenaire-Rods/dp/0201480085

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Since the C-rods are so out of fashion generally, maybe it didn't occur to them to use the same colors? I mean, my guess is that we are literally the *only* group of people who will likely be annoyed by this.

 

Or... is it actually possible that they weren't influenced by the C-rods? It seems really unlikely though - the picture puzzles look exactly like the really old beginning C-rod puzzles like the ones in this old book:

http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Puzzles-with-Cuisenaire-Rods/dp/0201480085

 

Are they? In my little corner of the world (district), they are in almost every elementary classroom from prek through at least 1st or 2nd grade. Now, whether or not they are actually used...

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Are they? In my little corner of the world (district), they are in almost every elementary classroom from prek through at least 1st or 2nd grade. Now, whether or not they are actually used...

 

Oh! Well, that's lovely to hear! I hear of them in private schools sometimes, but since they're not integrated with any of the popular current programs, it seems like they're pretty out of fashion. But I'd love to be wrong. The middle school I worked at had bundles of them. But... private schools.

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I applied to be a beta tester and have sent them an email about their colours.

 

Didn't they have someone from their company create an account at WTM one time when we were discussing Dragonbox? I'll try to look them up. If we can contact them through PM maybe they can read this thread and we can discuss the colour importance with them.

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Guest lacostej

Hello everybody!

 

This is Jerome on behalf of WeWantToKnow. Thanks for bringing this conversation to our eyes :)

 

With regard to the colors, if my memory is right, we started with the original Cuisenaire colors, and our very experienced lead graphist said that it wasn't rendering properly on screen. Physical world and digital world do not have the same properties. I'll try to get a more detailed answer for next week, and see what we can do about it.

 

I gave a few of you access to the beta. It's getting a bit late here, so I will not be staying around much but will come back in the coming days.

 

Feel free to ask more questions! And thanks again for your support!

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I was approved to be a beta and in the 5-10 minutes my 7 year old and I have played with it so far, I'm a big fan. I explained them as "like the rods but different colors and called Nooms." She accepted that. I'm excited to see what else it will do. Especially for her. She struggles with number sense a lot. I can see all three of my girls enjoying it, despite their age range.

 

Conversation just overheard between dd3 and dd7:

dd3: "What's that called?"

dd7: "It is Nooms. They are like monster rods."

dd3: "Monster rods! That's so silly"

 

Then they proceeded to giggle like they were in a commercial for the app or something and my 3 year old demanded I make her a profile too. So I'd say it certainly appeals to girls and those already familiar with rods. :)

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Hello everybody!

 

This is Jerome on behalf of WeWantToKnow. Thanks for bringing this conversation to our eyes :)

 

With regard to the colors, if my memory is right, we started with the original Cuisenaire colors, and our very experienced lead graphist said that it wasn't rendering properly on screen. Physical world and digital world do not have the same properties. I'll try to get a more detailed answer for next week, and see what we can do about it.

 

I gave a few of you access to the beta. It's getting a bit late here, so I will not be staying around much but will come back in the coming days.

 

Feel free to ask more questions! And thanks again for your support!

So glad to see you stopped by, so sorry to see that I did not get an email to be a beta tester :( I look forward to updates.

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Hello everybody!

 

This is Jerome on behalf of WeWantToKnow. Thanks for bringing this conversation to our eyes :)

 

With regard to the colors, if my memory is right, we started with the original Cuisenaire colors, and our very experienced lead graphist said that it wasn't rendering properly on screen. Physical world and digital world do not have the same properties. I'll try to get a more detailed answer for next week, and see what we can do about it.

 

I gave a few of you access to the beta. It's getting a bit late here, so I will not be staying around much but will come back in the coming days.

 

Feel free to ask more questions! And thanks again for your support!

 

 

Hey Jerome!

 

I must say you guys have really delivered on the promise of making an app based learning tool that is fun, interactive, discovery-based, and effective. Most other maths apps thus far have been little more than "drill" wrapped up in a pretty picture. You guys have done something very unique, and dare I say, extraordinary!

 

Well done. And thank you.

 

As for the the idea of the Cuisenaire colors not rendering properly onscreen, that is ridiculous. Sorry, but I work in the world of digital video and digital arts, and can tell you beyond question that you can render colors that approximate the C Rod color scheme very easily on all digital platforms. I'm flabbergasted that a "very experienced lead graphic artist" would tell you such a thing, as it is patently untrue.

 

I love what you all do. It is genius. But that is a dumb "excuse."

 

Warmest regards,

 

Bill

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Hey Jerome!

 

I must say you guys have really delivered on the promise of making an app based learning tool that is fun, interactive, discovery-based, and effective. Most other maths apps thus far have been little more than "drill" wrapped up in a pretty picture. You guys have done something very unique, and dare I say, extraordinary!

 

Well done. And thank you.

 

As for the the idea of the Cuisenaire colors not rendering properly onscreen, that is ridiculous. Sorry, but I work in the world of digital video and digital arts, and can tell you beyond question that you can render colors that approximate the C Rod color scheme very easily on all digital platforms. I'm flabbergasted that a "very experienced lead graphic artist" would tell you such a thing, as it is patently untrue.

 

I love what you all do. It is genius. But that is a dumb "excuse."

 

Warmest regards,

 

Bill

 

:iagree:  If your tech people can't render colors like white, black, and red, you might want to look into getting some new tech people. ;)

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Hi Jerome,

 

Thanks for joining our discussion and providing beta access to several of us. I spent a couple of hours playing Numbers last night, and it is a really fun game. I will provide most of my feedback through the beta channels, but I will address the colours issue here as it pertains to this discussion.

 

It is extremely confusing to me having essentially random colours for the Nooms. Even after two hours of play I kept thinking the red was two and the green was three. I successfully learned one, five and ten, but six through eight I still have no idea. I do remember nine as my husband immaturely referred to it as the "poo Noom" (long brown rounded shape) and I now can't think of it any other way. I would be very reluctant to let my children play the game at this stage as I don't want to weaken the memory bonds they already have regarding the colours corresponding to numbers.

 

Fortunately, if colours rendering is the issue, then we are in luck. The problem as I see it isn't that the colours get matched exactly. I personally don't care what shade gets used. What is important is that the number doesn't get assigned a colour that we already associate with a different number.

 

Here are the colours you use: purple, yellow, red, green, grey, orange, blue, pink, brown, black

 

Here is how I would assign them:

1 - grey

2 - red

3 - green

4 - purple

5 - yellow

6 - dark green (or pink if you cannot change any colours)

7 - black

8 - brown (and the 8 is a much better shape for brown)

9 - blue

10 - orange

 

As you can see, the only colour you are not already using is dark green. Although I would prefer it to be the correct c-rod colour, if all other colours were correct I would allow my children to play because overall it would not be confusing. I understand you have a rapidly-approaching deadline and some changes aren't possible at this stage.

 

One issue I see with changing colours is that the face for seven does not show up for black. You won't want to move ten's face because it has ten eyes and ten teeth. I would recommend switching the faces for seven and nine. That way, seven moves to nine and will still be blue with the same face. Nine's face moves to seven and becomes black. Most of the facial features would work with black, except the furrowed brow when the mouth is open and when blinking. May I suggest making those lines the same colour as the mouth.

 

Thanks for coming to hear what we had to say. We are a passionate group, and we truly love your games! I think Numbers is wonderful already, but would be amazing with the c-rod colours.

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My kids (and dh) have been playing all weekend. Dd hesitated with the colors at first, but made sense of it all within 30 seconds. She regularly uses rods with her mm. I guess the other characteristics like the eyes and length of the rod are more important to her. She said it doesn't matter to her what color the nooms are. Ods wasn't bothered by the colors at all, but he's been "off" rods for a couple years. Hope that helps anyone that might be hesitating because of the colors!

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