The Matrix

Logo

Inspiration

We have created “The Matrix” to promote social interaction and communication among younger students. We understand that at the grade of six to nine, the development of communication is critical. It is at that stage of life that moulds the next generation and we want to provide a tool to establish a solid foundation so that these students can make positive impacts on the world down the road. Our inspiration stems from our passion for academics, competition, and giving back to our community. All of us are tutors, volunteers and paid, so naturally, this idea was the one we chose out of the few we brainstormed of. The name “The Matrix” originates from the definition of a matrix, an environment or material in which something develops; a surrounding medium or structure (google). It also relates to the math term matrices as well as alludes to the movie where humans come together for a greater cause. The problem sets will strengthen leadership, teamwork, critical thinking, communication, integrity and many more skill sets. We believe these skills are what have carried us to where we are today and we would like to pass those virtues on to younger students who have to navigate these difficult uncertain times.

What it does

Essentially, we have weekly problem sets for students to work on. Our idea is to have groups of students working towards a common goal of solving the problem set together. These would be groups of around 4 students and we will have them set a specific time where they will collaborate using a video calling platform. We also have a whiteboard function for each team to use to collaborate on each question. This is implemented on our website and we will regularly update the website posting new problems every week. Previous problem sets will go into a problem set archive for students to revisit whenever. To make things interesting, we have decided to rotate through different topics every week. These topics consist of mathematics, sciences, common knowledge, puzzles such as escape room simulations, and more. Onto the logistics of the system, when the answers are submitted, we can see all responses and at the end of each week, we will extract the data out of the website and onto an excel spreadsheet, and from there we use excel to mark the answers right or wrong. As an incentive to participate in our weekly sets, we will implement a prize/prizes at the end of each month and do a raffle to distribute the prize(s).

How we built it

We are using Wix as our website host and using HTML/CSS to code the questions onto the page. We are also using the function option in excel to mark answers simply by checking if what each group enters matches with the answer and going from there.

Challenges we ran into

Unfortunately due to differing timezones, busy schedules and a general shortage of time, some of what we wanted to implement just were not possible. The largest challenge was learning how to code in Javascript and HTML in a span of fewer than 48 hours. The three of us have experience in python, but we could not find a way to implement python into our idea.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Through this experience, we have learned a lot about website design and website coding (HTML/Javascript) and our finished product/idea in the time we had is an accomplishment we are very proud of. Although not exactly how we envisioned the project to go, with minimal experience, we were able to articulate our idea in a manner we think is clear and concise.

What we learned

As said above, both website design and coding were learned from this experience. It has inspired us to continue exploring the language and perhaps go public with this project. We think it is very possible that with a bit more time spent, and a bit more experience, we will be able to make our website from scratch (not using Wix), make our video calling platform, and make our real-time collaborative whiteboard using HTML and Javascript so that we can keep our database on one platform instead of across many (google, Wix, excel, etc.).

What's next for The Matrix

If indeed we are to go through with this project, we will start reaching out to teachers as a form of mass advertisement to get our name out and gauge interest. We will also be looking for sponsorships to contribute to the prize pool shortly. The website will constantly be updated and revised, and we will create a problem bank so that every week has a fresh set of questions for students to collaborate on.