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Well, it’s hard to believe, but the official Mathometer says that a total of 479,732,613 questions were answered in the 48 hour 2010 event.  That is almost 500 million questions answered in a 48 hour period.  Absolutely incredible.

Also, a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORD has been set (to be verified) – 1,133,246 students participated in the World Maths Day 48 hour event.  Over 2 million registered for the practice period and event – what might the 2011 event bring?

The World Maths Day team would like to thank every one of you for achieving this amazing feat of mathematical effort.

The Hall of Fame will continue for the next 12 hours so please keep playing to see if you can get on the Hall of Fame through 500 games.  Check the new finish times here if you’re not sure.

Congratulations to all students and teachers around the globe for Uniting the World in Numbers in World Record style!

The World Maths Day Team

“Harry … I have a super top secret project for you“, said the IM from Mitch, my manager.

This was a couple of weeks after Apple had released the development kit for building applications that run on the iPod and iPhone, so I jokingly typed back “You want an iPod app for Mathletics?“.

It is quite impossible to describe my shock and excitement when the reply that came back was “Yes! How did you know?“.

That was the start of a journey that has led to the World Maths Day 2010 game which, as I write, over 38 thousand people, from around the world, have downloaded from the iTunes App Store.

Since this year’s competition began at 10pm Tuesday, Sydney time, the number of people competing via the iPod game has hovered between 100 and 200.  Sure, it’s only a fraction of the tens of thousands of players who are competing live at any point in time, but I still find it amazing!

Two weeks after Mitch sent that message, I’d cobbled together an initial proof of concept. It was precisely the sort of thing you’d expect to come from a geek like me, who has confessed more than once that he has not a single design gene lurking on any of his 46 chromosomes.

Anyone who didn’t know better would assume the user interface was something a five year old had drawn (while in need of a nap!), and to describe the engine I’d created to match players against each other as “crude” would be a serious act of kindness … but the thing worked!

Fortunately for you, gentle reader, 3P Learning doesn’t have to rely on my skills alone.  I’m surrounded by a clever group of colleagues with a diverse range of talents.

The beautiful interface that now adorns the game is the result of many iterations by Lizzie, one of our incredibly gifted graphic designers.  Her efforts have really made it pop.

Adam created the animations that give the application a sense of fun.  In particular, I love those two kiddies who pop up and wave at me during the many hours of testing and debugging .

Houman built the engine that sits on the back end, diligently matching people from around the world to each other and keeping track of all their scores.  Compared to the toy I originally whipped up, it’s like a gold-plated Rolls Royce!

Finally, consider yourself lucky that we have Sam, who runs our quality assurance department. If it wasn’t for her, you’d be lucky if your scores weren’t augmenting the bank account of some deceased Nigerian general, rather than quickly building the Mathometer towards a new world record.

It’s great to be able to work with such a great team, on such a fun application. I’d still want to do this job even if the company didn’t pay me … but, whatever you do, don’t tell Mitch that!

Harry O.