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  Starting Menu Screen

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  Gameplay

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  Sample Question

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  Jumping Mechanism

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  Scoreboard

Cognitive Dash: A Hands-Free Educational Game for Differently Abled and ADHD Students

Inspiration:

We were inspired to create an inclusive educational game that helps children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and those with physical disabilities learn through interactive, fun, and hands-free gameplay. By combining the power of voice-controlled interaction with engaging educational content, we aim to make learning more accessible and enjoyable for differently-abled students.

What It Does:

Cognitive Dash is an interactive game where students control their characters using their voices, without the need for physical input. The objective is to answer educational questions presented in a fun and interactive way. Players choose between two answers, and they must guide their characters to either jump or stay based on the correct answer. Incorrect answers result in a virtual enemy starting to chase their character. After two incorrect answers, the player loses the game, motivating them to stay focused and engaged.

How We Built It:

We developed Cognitive Dash using Unity, utilizing its features to create an immersive 2D environment that is both visually appealing and educational. Key aspects of the development process included:

• Designing characters, levels, and environments with accessible graphic design tools to ensure an enjoyable user experience for children.
• Creating educational content that aligns with school curricula, focusing on age-appropriate questions and answers.
• Integrating voice recognition technology to allow students to control their characters without any physical input, making the game truly hands-free.

Challenges We Ran Into:

• Ensuring accurate voice recognition was one of our biggest challenges, as it was critical for the game to reliably interpret the students' commands.
• Striking the right balance between education and entertainment to keep students engaged in learning while making the game fun and rewarding.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of:

We are proud of developing a game that combines education, entertainment, and accessibility in a seamless way. Cognitive Dash helps differently abled and ADHD students enjoy learning through interactive gameplay. Additionally, we integrated a feature where questions are repeated until answered correctly, inspired by popular learning platforms like Duolingo, ensuring that students master concepts through positive reinforcement.

What We Learned:

This project taught us the importance of gamification in education, especially for students with learning or physical challenges. By using voice controls and creating a system that fosters engagement and motivation, we have been able to make learning more accessible. We also gained valuable experience in using voice recognition to enhance interactivity for hands-free gameplay.

What's Next for Cognitive Dash:

We plan to expand Cognitive Dash by introducing new levels, diverse question categories, and more complex challenges. Our goal is to launch the game on the Google Play Store to make it widely available for students and educators. We also hope to collaborate with special educators to refine the content and adapt it to meet the needs of differently-abled and ADHD students, making it a comprehensive educational tool across a variety of subjects.

Built With

• c#
• python
• unity