Fall 2025 Thursday Bootcamp 1.0 Konita Games Gamified Learning App
Project Owner: Berhane Wheeler
Email: wheelerb@berea.edu
The company name is Konita Games, and “Don’t Be Late!” (Our first flagship product) is a mathematics video game tool for elementary and middle school learners. It’s a 3D platformer that requires the player to solve math problems as part of the obstacles at different levels in the game. However, there will be limited time to answer these questions, because the player must get to school on time, and they woke up late. If they answer the problem incorrectly, they will miss the jump or obstacle and fail. If the player fails the same question more than 2 times the game will explain how to solve similar problems to the player. We’re gamifying mathematics because, according to studies, there is a 48% increase in educational engagement with the help of gamification. The levels in the game are based on the core mathematics curriculum for schools in the USA. Each level will start with an in-game lesson for the students to learn the topic. Don’t Be Late will include user profiles for students, and teachers to track progress. The game will also include unlockable characters, power-ups to improve the player's engagement, and a leaderboard to encourage friendly competition between learners in the school. Eventually, the game will include an online mode for players to compete against each other.
Don’t Be Late will be equipped with in-depth analytics for teachers to grasp how well the students are performing in the game and understanding the mathematical concepts. The teachers will receive information on, overall progress, engagement metrics, alerts, classwide accuracy, etc. These features will help differentiate Don’t Be Late from other games that gamify mathematics. Most direct competitors don’t make the game part of the game very fun, which is what I aim to achieve with Don’t Be Late. The target customers for Don’t Be Late are elementary and middle schools, specifically schools that wish to improve the mathematics learning experience for their students. Schools have dedicated funding for educational tools and I believe Don’t Be Late will be of immense value to them. I talked to 7 schools in Kentucky and they all expressed interest in piloting the game. The target audience is elementary and middle school learners, who wish to make their mathematics learning experience more enjoyable. After making enough money from schools I’ll use some of the money to market the game to individual users, who can play the game in independence from a school entity. The revenue model will be subscription-based for schools, using monthly/yearly contracts based on the number of seats the school requests.
As the CEO I have vast experience in building this startup, I’m studying Computer Science, and Business and am set to work a JP Morgan Software Engineering internship this summer. I also have a YouTube channel teaching video game programming with almost half a million total views.
I hope to attain partnerships with companies that can provide schools of lower economic status with grants that can pay the fees for hosting the game.
