Learning with Merlin
Merlin's Magic Castle is where the power of technology meets the ingenuity of a group of students. Developed by Purdue students to help teach language skills, the project took first place in an Idea-to-Product competition for community service-based projects in April.
“The goal was to make an engaging game for young children to facilitate their learning of English as a second language,” said project programmer and web administrator Brian Trisler, a senior majoring in computer science and clinical psychology.
Merlin's Magic Castle runs on a computer and uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology that the students embedded in toys. When a toy is run over the computer's scanner, the program registers that RFID, and as Merlin says the toy's name, it also appears on the screen. “These multiple levels of stimulation (audio, video, and haptic [touch]) influence better comprehension and information retention,” said project leader Alexei Czeskis, a junior double majoring in computer science and math, and minoring in Russian.
RFID was installed in 25 toys ranging from basketballs to carrots. The team had to face the challenges of creating a real-world project to be used by real children. “It was very important to keep the product safe,” said Czeskis. “We had to engineer casing that would prevent the children from destroying the technology. We also had to implant RFID tags in toys in such a manner that they would not fall out, get eaten, or get crushed, and would still manage to receive and send signals.”
In true entrepreneurial fashion, the students were also expected to understand the business side of the project. “[We researched] the size of the market, what it is currently worth, trends in products and cost, forecast values for what the market is predicted to be in the future, competing products, and key players in the industry (education and toys). We did surveys and talked with our contact at the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy to tailor the product to the needs and interests of the children,” said Amicia Elliott, a genetics major who coordinated the market research for the project. “And it turned out to be a success,” she said.
Winning the competition was the culmination of a year and a half of work for Czeskis. “The project began three semesters ago. Most people on the team [at the end] were not present in the previous semesters. We took everyone who wanted to help and found a niche for every person,” he said.
The team that took the project to competition in April included a diverse group of students and majors: Czeskis, Harvey Chong, and Trisler, all computer science majors; Elliott, genetics; Partick Daly, electrical and computer engineering; Eric Su, computer engineering; Sui Cheng Wong, electrical engineering; and Jasmine Hall, speech audiology. 