24th July, 2014
Damilare Okunola
Moshood Abiola, a final year student of the University of Lagos, UNILAG, has narrated how he spent ten years to invent a new maths game for primary and secondary school students.
Abiola, whose philosophy about life is identifying a problem and proffering a solution to it, no matter how long, said he spent 10 years before solving a problem he identified as a teenager.
The 26-year-old Mathematics Education student of UNILAG, told P.M.NEWS Campus Square, that he had always thought of how to help younger minds erase the fear that mathematical equations posed to them but did not know how to go about it.
“At a point, I thought it was not possible because everything I came up with was counter-productive,” he said.
“So, more often than not, I ended up abandoning the project though it was a burning desire on my mind,” he added.
Born into a large family, where he is the last of 11 children, Abiola finally recorded success in his years of research work in June when all the ‘permutations’ of his pet project became void.
According to him, “I was looking at the tiles in the toilet one day when I suddenly realised that I could use the format of the tiles to arrive at my goal.
“I quickly adopted the format and it worked like magic.”
While explaining what the game is all about and how it is being played, the light-skinned student said, “the game is played with a dice and a maximum of six ‘seeds’ of different colours.
“The yellow patch on the game’s surface implies multiplication, green means addition, red means pick a card which could have any action, blue signifies subtraction, black means division while the white patch shows that you have ended the game.
“The black patch where you’ll have to divide is only found on boxes with numbers 60, 120 and 180; all these numbers are divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 so, there won’t be any problem while playing the game.”
Having tested the ‘reality’ of the game with an average of 50 kids already, Abiola believes that the game will help youngsters cure their abstract perception of mathematics.
“The game is in series. This first one is Math Race 1 for pupils from primary 2-6. The second and third ones are Math Race 2 and 3 for Junior and Senior Secondary School students respectively.
“There is also Math War which is basically to help with the challenges of multiplication. With all of these, I am sure that students will fear mathematics less,” the soft-spoken Mathematician said.
To underscore his commitment to the project, Abiola explained that he dedicated about one hour daily to the invention inside his ‘laboratory’, which according to him could be “anywhere I sit down to think of how to solve the problem.”
In achieving his ultimate goal, Abiola noted that nobody was aware of what he was planning as he did not inform anyone, “not even my closest friends knew that I was up to anything,” he said.
“I simply kept everything to myself because I wanted to be sure that I was the one who came up with a solution to the problem and telling anybody could distract me,” he added.
With his time dedicated to his dream invention, Abiola stated that he could not maintain any serious relationship and also expressed his mother’s fears when he was always seen with a dice.
He said: “mum thought that I was gambling because of dice I was always taking with me but she was relieved to have found out what I was up to.”
Ibrahim Onikoyi, a close friend of Abiola’s, stated that his friend took him by surprise when he came up with the invention.
“I was taken aback a little because he never mentioned it to anybody beforehand. The new game is incredible and will surely help the students overcome their fear of mathematics,” he said.