5 ms·

Show HN: Speedsums

59 points by refrigerator 11y ago

jetbeau 11y ago
Super handy, Ive applied for air traffic controlling in Australia and these mathematical albeit harder questions are part of the testing. Can you make a large bank of harder questions? Similar to the level of the calculation test on http://www.shldirect.com/en/practice-tests http://www.shldirect.com/en/practice-tests
AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
I genuinely enjoy this. I haven't had to 'race' against simple math like that since I did my times tables in late elementary/middle school, so this was a lot of fun. Still got it apparently!
- ams6110 11y ago
  I hated it then, and don't like it any better now. But that aside, this is nicely done.
zaroth 11y ago
Nice simple UI. I like not having to hit enter! If you want to make it more "fair" consider bining the questions by difficulty and randomly select some number from each bin, versus a random selection / generation over the entire pool of possible questions, or actually timing each response individually and showing an average of the percentiles for each answer, instead of a percentile for the average time. Total sums done: 3,816,583 -- really?
- refrigerator 11y ago
  I thought about taking steps to make sure that tests are more fair and balanced, but decided against it because I think the small element of luck is part of what makes you want to play again :)
  - zaroth 11y ago
    I think you might be right about that! On second thought, yes, a very interesting element of the game design.
nicklo 11y ago
I think I won the game http://imgur.com/qSerUAV http://imgur.com/qSerUAV
confiscate 11y ago
Nice UI! I like the minions background at the end when the scoring page shows up. For the timer, can it be a non-decimal number? Seems like I don't really care about decimal time (don't think most users care about fractions of a second)
function_seven 11y ago
Nice. More fun than I thought it'd be. One suggestion: mark the input field as a telephone input (?) so mobile users can get a nice fat numeric keypad. (?) I know there are various ways to do this, they just escape me at the moment.
- refrigerator 11y ago
  Great idea - I'll hopefully find time to make it mobile friendly in the next few days so will definitely implement this.
- scraymer 11y ago
  <input id="answer" type="tel" autocomplete="off">
yitchelle 11y ago
I came across a bug when it asked me for 11 x 12. I entered the answer but nothing happened. Pressing return, another digit or some other key failed. I just let the time run down. I was on Firefox 38.0.5.
- refrigerator 11y ago
  Thanks for letting me know - will look into it!
rusbus 11y ago
Experience on mobile isn't too great... Very laggy and the box doesn't default to numerical input.
- refrigerator 11y ago
  Yeah apologies for this - I've been meaning to find time to make it mobile friendly
tylerpachal 11y ago
The minions gif at the end made me laugh out loud in my office haha awesome
kornish 11y ago
(function() { var input = $('#answer'), question = $('#question'), solved = 0; var intvl = setInterval(function() { var questionText = question.text(); questionText = questionText.replace('÷', '/').replace('x', '*').replace('=', ''); input.val(eval(questionText)); input.keyup(); solved++ if (solved == 119) clearTimeout(intvl); }, 50); })(); edit: seems to give an error if you solve >= 120 questions, so adjusted to stop at 119.
- flaie 11y ago
  I could get to 118, but it doesn't want a 119th answer, or the UI gets completely broken. http://imgur.com/HG0J9fN http://imgur.com/HG0J9fN
  - kornish 11y ago
    Strange. The 119th answer is fine for me, but the 120th breaks it. I revised the script to not rely on interval multiplication, which can be flighty due to inconsistent latencies, but to rather keep a counter and cancel the interval after 119 solves.
    - flaie 11y ago
      This is the script I used, but yours blocks also on 119 for me. var answer = function() { var q = $("#question").text().replace(/x|÷|=/g, function(m) { return {'x':'*','÷':'/','=':''}[m]}); $("#answer").val(eval(q)).keyup(); }; $('#question').bind("DOMSubtreeModified", function(){ setTimeout(answer, 200); }); answer(); Don't have much time to search why :-)
willyyr 11y ago
Reminds me of Dr. Kawashima on the Nintendo DS a few years back. Nice.
janjongboom 11y ago
When you're typing and want to correct with BACKSPACE, but at the same time the timer runs out you'll be returned to previous page and can't see your score...
- refrigerator 11y ago
  That's happened to me a couple of times and it's super annoying - will try and fix this.
MaysonL 11y ago
Try using / instead of ÷, as ÷ and + are easily mistaken by those with bad eyesight/astigmatism.
- refrigerator 11y ago
  I did use / initially but a lot of people said that they don't instantly register / as meaning 'divided by'
  - 2manyredirects 11y ago
    Perhaps some wisely chosen (i.e. clear) SVGs - either inline or as part of an icon font - could be used instead?
chillingeffect 11y ago
Nice. I just ran through it along with http://www.keybr.com/#!game http://www.keybr.com/#!game to spike my mental acuity. Anyone have other suggestions while I'm at it?
goldenkey 11y ago
Reminds me of Krypto, a pretty fun card game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypto_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypto_(game) Play it here: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3569 http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3569
met0do 11y ago
Great stuff

59 points by refrigerator 11y ago

Super handy, Ive applied for air traffic controlling in Australia and these mathematical albeit harder questions are part of the testing. Can you make a large bank of harder questions? Similar to the level of the calculation test on http://www.shldirect.com/en/practice-tests http://www.shldirect.com/en/practice-tests

AnkhMorporkian 11y ago

I genuinely enjoy this. I haven't had to 'race' against simple math like that since I did my times tables in late elementary/middle school, so this was a lot of fun. Still got it apparently!

ams6110 11y ago
I hated it then, and don't like it any better now. But that aside, this is nicely done.

zaroth 11y ago

Nice simple UI. I like not having to hit enter! If you want to make it more "fair" consider bining the questions by difficulty and randomly select some number from each bin, versus a random selection / generation over the entire pool of possible questions, or actually timing each response individually and showing an average of the percentiles for each answer, instead of a percentile for the average time. Total sums done: 3,816,583 -- really?

refrigerator 11y ago
I thought about taking steps to make sure that tests are more fair and balanced, but decided against it because I think the small element of luck is part of what makes you want to play again :)
- zaroth 11y ago
  I think you might be right about that! On second thought, yes, a very interesting element of the game design.

nicklo 11y ago

I think I won the game http://imgur.com/qSerUAV http://imgur.com/qSerUAV

confiscate 11y ago

Nice UI! I like the minions background at the end when the scoring page shows up. For the timer, can it be a non-decimal number? Seems like I don't really care about decimal time (don't think most users care about fractions of a second)

function_seven 11y ago

Nice. More fun than I thought it'd be. One suggestion: mark the input field as a telephone input (?) so mobile users can get a nice fat numeric keypad. (?) I know there are various ways to do this, they just escape me at the moment.

refrigerator 11y ago
Great idea - I'll hopefully find time to make it mobile friendly in the next few days so will definitely implement this.
scraymer 11y ago
<input id="answer" type="tel" autocomplete="off">

yitchelle 11y ago

I came across a bug when it asked me for 11 x 12. I entered the answer but nothing happened. Pressing return, another digit or some other key failed. I just let the time run down. I was on Firefox 38.0.5.

refrigerator 11y ago
Thanks for letting me know - will look into it!

rusbus 11y ago

Experience on mobile isn't too great... Very laggy and the box doesn't default to numerical input.

refrigerator 11y ago
Yeah apologies for this - I've been meaning to find time to make it mobile friendly

tylerpachal 11y ago

The minions gif at the end made me laugh out loud in my office haha awesome

kornish 11y ago

(function() { var input = $('#answer'), question = $('#question'), solved = 0; var intvl = setInterval(function() { var questionText = question.text(); questionText = questionText.replace('÷', '/').replace('x', '*').replace('=', ''); input.val(eval(questionText)); input.keyup(); solved++ if (solved == 119) clearTimeout(intvl); }, 50); })(); edit: seems to give an error if you solve >= 120 questions, so adjusted to stop at 119.

flaie 11y ago
I could get to 118, but it doesn't want a 119th answer, or the UI gets completely broken. http://imgur.com/HG0J9fN http://imgur.com/HG0J9fN
- kornish 11y ago
  Strange. The 119th answer is fine for me, but the 120th breaks it. I revised the script to not rely on interval multiplication, which can be flighty due to inconsistent latencies, but to rather keep a counter and cancel the interval after 119 solves.
  - flaie 11y ago
    This is the script I used, but yours blocks also on 119 for me. var answer = function() { var q = $("#question").text().replace(/x|÷|=/g, function(m) { return {'x':'*','÷':'/','=':''}[m]}); $("#answer").val(eval(q)).keyup(); }; $('#question').bind("DOMSubtreeModified", function(){ setTimeout(answer, 200); }); answer(); Don't have much time to search why :-)

willyyr 11y ago

Reminds me of Dr. Kawashima on the Nintendo DS a few years back. Nice.

janjongboom 11y ago

When you're typing and want to correct with BACKSPACE, but at the same time the timer runs out you'll be returned to previous page and can't see your score...

refrigerator 11y ago
That's happened to me a couple of times and it's super annoying - will try and fix this.

MaysonL 11y ago

Try using / instead of ÷, as ÷ and + are easily mistaken by those with bad eyesight/astigmatism.

refrigerator 11y ago
I did use / initially but a lot of people said that they don't instantly register / as meaning 'divided by'
- 2manyredirects 11y ago
  Perhaps some wisely chosen (i.e. clear) SVGs - either inline or as part of an icon font - could be used instead?

chillingeffect 11y ago

Nice. I just ran through it along with http://www.keybr.com/#!game http://www.keybr.com/#!game to spike my mental acuity. Anyone have other suggestions while I'm at it?

goldenkey 11y ago

Reminds me of Krypto, a pretty fun card game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypto_(game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypto_(game) Play it here: http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3569 http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3569

met0do 11y ago

Great stuff