Monster Math: Design a 3-D Printed Math Fractions, Counting, or AdditionGame

Your team will envision, create, and design a 3-D toy (math manipulative) that is central to a game that teaches a math concept for kids, like equivalent fractions, counting, or addition/subtraction. Think Mr. Potato Head meets Rainbow Fraction Tiles, or Counting Blocks. Your team decides the level of math your Monster will focus.

The Oakcliff Shark Tank (OST), an imaginary educational toy maker, just published a Request for Proposal (RFP). The RFP calls for a new design for a toy-game called "Math Monster." Teams completing at least one prototype of this design may register to pitch their designs at the OST’s Inventor’s Pitch Meeting. OST’s Inventor’s Pitch Meeting Date, Time, and Location will be emailed to registered teams. Presenters must bring their prototype 3-D designs, videos of focus groups playing with their toy-game design, their 3-D models, if they printed one, and three copies of their rules printed out on white paper, in 14-point, Times Roman font.

1. Basically, the toy-game 3-D design should be some body part pieces that the kids hook into the monster’s body (like Mr. Potato Head) eyes, ears, nose, trunk, shoes, feet, beak, tail, horns, spikes, wings, hands, antennae, face, etc. These pieces serve as markers for successful turns. The big concept is a mash-up of Mr. Potato Head and Rainbow Fraction Tiles Math manipulatives that are commonly found in elementary school classrooms.
2. The toy-game 3-D design should include math pieces – like blocks, coins, disks, or other math pieces that represent the math units required for the concept being taught. Somehow, the student designers must create a way for the math pieces to fit into, or attach to the body of the monster. The best designs will incorporate the math pieces into the body of the monster.
3. The teams should write rules for the game, include at least one variation of the standard game, and design an easy way to keep score or track of the math concepts learned. The Stem Notebook Template gives more specific help for the directions. 
4. The team should follow the STEM Engineering Design Process, and keep a STEM Notebook (online).
   
5. Finally, at the Shark Tank’s “inventor’s Pitch Meeting,” registered teams completing a 3-D prototype may present their toy-game, 3-D prototype, STEM Notebook, videos of focus groups playing with their toy-game design. These teams will have necessarily completed several 3-D design iterations prior to the 3-D print.
6. In the end, you should have a working 3-D printed game with rules, that teaches a concept of math, like addition or subtraction, equivalent fractions, or counting to 10.