Students from King Edward VI School in Stratford-upon-Avon have designed their own online game which launches today on Mangahigh, an educational maths platform for students across the globe. The pupils, aged 13-14, are celebrating the achievement with an event at their school.

The game concept was selected as the winner of the Cracking the Code competition. The winning team’s Minus Miners game challenges participants to escape an underground mine, teaching them all about negative numbers in the process. There is also a shop where players can go and spend the gold coins they collect from correctly answering questions. In its second year, the competition invited 11-14 year olds to work together in groups to use maths to design online games.

Ten teams of finalists came to Nesta’s offices in central London in June to present their idea to a panel of judges. The game is aimed at the designers’ peers to inspire a love of maths and demonstrate how the subject can be used creatively. The winning team of students came up with the layout, story and maths puzzles within the game. Mangahigh then produced a paper prototype of the game, which was tested by the team of students, before building the game online.

Cracking the Code, run by Nesta, the innovation foundation, Tata Group and Tata Consultancy Services is a part of Maths Mission, a programme of activity aiming to improve maths and problem solving skills and interest in maths through competitions, digital parental engagement tools and peer mentoring. Last year, Cracking the Code entrants designed an escape room concept that was then set up at the winners school.

Kate Bower, Assistant Programme Manager at Nesta says, “Maths Mission was set up to increase young people’s interest in maths and the Cracking the Code competition is an opportunity for students to use their imagination and apply maths in exciting contexts. This encourages the development of important skills like problem-solving and creativity. Maths should be combined with other subjects so students are aware of all the wonderful things it can be used for and how it effects so many aspects of our lives.”

Tim Jones, Executive Director at Tata Limited says, “I’ve been excited to visit King Edward VI school and congratulate the team in person for their achievement of designing the fantastic Minus Miners game. For us at Tata, whether it’s engineers at Jaguar Land Rover, app developers at Tata Consultancy Services or tea tasters at Tetley Tea, maths is crucial in many different careers within the group and innovation is at the heart of the success we have had over 150 years. I hope the winning team and their game will be a great example of the innovation young people can come up with when given the opportunity to do so and the wonderful things maths can do for them.”

Amanda Wood, Teacher from King Edwards VI school says “Through this competition, I have seen a level of creativity from the students that I don’t normally see. I am so proud of the students. It is incredible to see just how much they have learned from this project; so much more than just a thorough understanding of negative numbers but also presentation skills, confidence and teamwork when working with the design team to develop the game.”

Images of the game design are available upon request or you can play the game here.

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For more information contact Juliet Grant in Nesta’s press office on 020 7438 2668 or 07866 949047, [email protected] or [email protected]

Nesta_Press [email protected]

Notes to editors:

About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society. We've spent over 20 years working out the best ways to make change happen through research and experimenting, and we've applied that to our work in innovation policy, health, education, government innovation and the creative economy and arts. Nesta is based in the UK and supported by a financial endowment. We work with partners around the globe to bring bold ideas to life to change the world for good.

www.nesta.org.uk | @nesta_uk

About Tata group

Having established Tata Limited in 1907 to represent the group in Europe, Tata now has 19 companies operating across the continent, with a combined workforce of over 65,000. These companies include: Jaguar Land Rover; Tata Steel Europe; Tata Motors; Tata Consultancy Services (TCS); Tata Global Beverages (including Tetley Tea); Tata Chemicals and Taj Hotels. European markets with a key Tata presence include; the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

About Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPS, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model™, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development.

A part of the Tata group, India’s largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 385,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 46 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $17.58 billion for year ended March 31, 2017 and is listed on the BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India Limited. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.com

About Mangahigh

Mangahigh has developed one of the world’s first game-based learning (GBL) websites, where students learn mathematics and coding through creative activities that balance play and learning. Designed by a team of experienced educators and gaming experts, the adaptive platform builds individualised learning pathways for each of its users. AI further personalises this learning journey. Comprehensive data collection affords teachers a variety of summary and reporting tools, which can be used to track performance and assure adequate progression in key subject competencies. Mangahigh’s ever-growing extensive content is aligned to various international curricula in multiple languages, and this has underpinned the platform’s adoption by over 5,000 schools in 50+ countries.