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Educational app for trigonometry
Our team at SAPHI developed an educational app for trigonometry. The app was designed and developed by our team to make trigonometry interactive for the classroom. A free downloadable app with a trigonometry calculator, TrigIt allows students to apply the mathematics they have learnt in the classroom to real-world scenarios.
Why Did We Build TrigIt?
Since opening our doors in 2017, our team at SAPHI have been passionate about supporting STEM education through our mentoring initiatives targeted at high-school and university students and through our free tech meetups that we run each month.
So when Prue Owen, local maths teacher and husband to our director Cameron Owen, told us about her frustrations trying to engage her students when teaching trigonometry, we knew immediately that we had an opportunity to have a significant impact and blend the two things we love most – tech and education!
What Was The Problem?
As a passionate teacher, Prue endeavours to find and create activities that will engage her students and make their learning more meaningful. Ever since she started teaching in 2013, she has loved taking students outside to measure objects as a part of their trigonometry topic. However, the significant problems she faced were difficulty securing class sets of inclinometers to measure angles and engaging her students who were always on their phones!
Each year she would jump on the app store thinking there would surely be a good app out there to solve this problem, and each year, to her surprise, there was nothing. So in 2020, Prue thought, well, if someone hasn’t developed this app in the seven years that I had been looking and I have a tech company at my disposal – then why not give it a go ourselves!
What Was The Solution?
Our team decided that this app for trigonometry would be the perfect candidate for a technology we had recently backed called ‘Flutter’, which would enable us to build the trigonometry app across all platforms using just one codebase.
We developed the app to be intuitive and straightforward for users. Students would select the object they wish to measure and, using the built-in inclinometer smart-phones use, would be able to tilt the phone and align the cross-hair with the top of the object being measured to get the angle.
Students would then measure and input the distance away from the object and then select the save icon to generate an intuitive diagram that would save to the camera roll for later use in the classroom.
Once students have had a go at working out the object’s height, they would then be able to select ‘reveal solution’ to get a worked solution demonstrating the working required to get the correct answer.
What Were The Outcomes?
- Improved classroom engagement
- Increased positive sentiment towards maths
- Increase in average class-mark for the trigonometry topic
- Reduce expenditure for class equipment
What Skills Did SAPHI Use To Implement The Solution?
The tech stack and experience required for the trigonometry app included a broad range of skills from our team of UX/UI designers and software engineers, including:
- Tools
- Adobe XD – used to prepare mockups for market testing before proceeding with development
- Dart (language used to develop the trigonometry app)
- Flutter (framework used to structure the trigonometry app)
- GitHub Projects – Kept track of the tasks due and completed
What is the future of the Trigonometry App?
This free educational app for trigonometry has garnered significant interest from various groups within the department of education and has been integrated into an approved lesson plan to be used in selected schools around the Hunter. We have plans to expand the app’s usage throughout Australia to support as many teachers and students as we can.
Want To Learn How To Use TrigIt In Your Classroom?
Find out more about how you can start using TrigIt as part of your lessons by jumping on to the TrigIt website
Interested in other projects?
Check out more projects below!
CONTACT
- 0439 577 506
- Contact@saphi.com.au
- MAYFIELD WEST, NSW, AUSTRALIA, 2304
NAVIGATION
WORKING HOURS
- Monday to Friday
9am > 5pm