Programmers from MAI offer to introduce memory cards for schoolchildren

In Seoul (Korea), the Imagine Cup 2007 ended a few days ago - an international competition for the best program written by students. This year, a team of Thai students became the winners in the application development category and the main prize of $ 25,000. They developed a project LiveBook - a speech synthesis program that recognizes and voices out loud printed and handwritten text for blind users. The team from Russia (pictured) and the team from Ukraine dropped out at the semifinal stage, which is also very honorable. Ukrainian Roman Koshlyak managed to win second place in the category of algorithms. Here is the complete list of winners .

The Russians submitted to the competition the project Mapedia - a computer system for compiling and exchanging memory maps (mind maps). The main idea of ​​Mapedia is the embodiment of a fundamentally new learning process combining two key ideas: the use of memory cards to represent knowledge and the integration of individual maps into a single information space in the spirit of wiki-technologies.

Thus, the learning process is accelerated by an order of magnitude. MAI students are confident that their development can fundamentally change the entire school education system (which, in fact, is shown in the demo video under Habrakat).

Mapedia system is built on the principle of three-tier architecture. The system includes an application server and client programs that interact through a web service. The application server is the central part of the system. It focuses all business logic, which is divided into two subsystems:
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• Memory card management. Performs all editing operations on memory cards.

• Links. Allows you to connect different memory cards with each other.

All interface methods for calling clients are concentrated in a special interface layer. Using the server allows you to solve another problem - data storage. Centralized storage eliminates the problem of transferring work files from a desktop computer to a laptop or PDA. The system allows you to work with your memory cards, regardless of the computer.

The main condition for the Imagine Cup 2007 competition was the use of the Microsoft platform. Mapedia is developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 in C #. Web Service Enhancements (WSE 2.0) is used for server and client interaction, the user interface is built on WPF, and Microsoft MultiPoint is used for Multi-Touch implementation. The database server used is Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

A detailed description of the Mapedia project can be found in the prospectus of the Russian Imagine Cup final ( PDF ). The authors of the program: Konstantin Kichinsky, Konstantin Gorsky, Mikhail Gurenkov, Andrei Sverdlov, all are students of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Physics of the MAI, and the supervisor is Valentin Zaitsev.

Mapedia demo