Hack the Beach 2017 Contest Sign-up
Aug 16, 2017
submission
#40
Submit your idea
Your idea/ technology/ company
| Name of your idea or project | Go Pollock |
| Which challenge area does your idea respond to? | Learning |
| Describe your idea and how it can help Santa Monica | Go Pollock is a solution for teachers that complements in-class teaching with immediate feedback on every student’s level of understanding. This is done by creating questions that can be shared on every student's device; the teacher will see the responses and progress immediately on their device. However, unlike an isolated quiz, we believe that working collaboratively should be the default. This is why we provide Collaborative Challenges that can be projected in the classroom and motivate the class to succeed together by answering the teacher's questions correctly. With every correct answer, the Collaborative Challenge progresses positively; otherwise, the challenge will not reach the goal. Instead of teaching the Pythagorean theorem, because "it's important" or "in the curriculum", the teacher could project a Collaborative Challenge "Building the Golden Gate bridge". To build a bridge and calculate the spans, you need to apply the Pythagorean theorem. So the teacher might say: "Today, we're going to build the Golden Gate bridge together, as you can see on the classroom wall. Let's work through my questions about the Pythagorean theorem together, get it right and succeed as a class." Every student gets a voice, they understand a real-world application and the relevance of a topic, and the teacher profits from immediate feedback on every student's learning progress, empowering them to intervene as deemed appropriate. Collaborative Challenges are subject-, difficulty- and language-agnostic, and act primarily as a visual facilitator of success. It is the questions of the educator that will define subject, difficulty and language. As a platform, this allows us to eventually reach a very broad target audience, including adults. We intend to help Santa Monica by preparing the next generation of citizens to think collaboratively first, and to see in purpose their learning efforts. Santa Monica could also develop with us Collaborative Challenges that reflect local challenges, e.g. problems that the organization Heal the Bay are working on, thereby motivating children and young adults not only to build awareness, but also be interested in solutions. (We expect to finalize three Challenges by mid-September: Building the London Tower Bridge; Re-supplying the International Space Station with a reuseable rocket; Fighting city pollution with eco-urban architecture) |
| What stage is your idea or project in? | Prototype / MVP built |
| What needs to happen to launch your product? Please list all resources (hardware, software, licensing, legal/regulatory, funding, partnership or support from the City, data, etc.) required to launch your program. | We've already launched Go Pollock, but are still pre-revenue and learning how to improve our product. We're primarily looking for access to classrooms, where we can test more and new Collaborative Challenges, collect feedback for product improvement and introduce a payment model to secure sustainable innovation. |
| How realistic is it for your idea to be implemented by early 2018? Please describe what resources (if any) you will need in order to ensure a working product by early next year. | It is already done, has been used in more than 250 classes worldwide (mostly without Collaborative Challenges, however - as we've just launched this important feature this summer). |
You and your team
| Team Name | Pollock Technologies |
| List team members and their roles | --- |
| Contact email | --- |
| Phone number | --- |
| Primary Contact Name | --- |
Initial application scoring
Scoring
| Viability (40%) | --- |
| Value (40%) | --- |
| Growth (20%) | --- |
| Notes | --- |
| Advance to semi-finalist status? | No - if no, HALT PROCESS |