The MathFinder App

Research

Mathfinder app faculty guide students at the Dallas Arboretum

Seeing the World Through a Mathematical Lens

Technology-Enhanced Immersive Learning (TEIL): Place-based Augmented Reality (AR) technology games help ready math learners for learning algebraic principles

This ongoing project draws on research on informal math learning, problem-posing, and culturally sustaining pedagogies to conduct cycles of participatory design-based research on technology-supported math walks. Dr. Candace Walkington serves as PI and leads the project team that is conducting research on a location-based mobile app for informal mathematics learning.

This collaborative research has successfully launched the MathFinder app, in which learners can discover, interact with, and contribute to an interactive map of math "Walkstops” at nine real community sites including the Dallas Arboretum, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Zoo, Frontiers of Flight Museum, GEMS Camp, Girl Scouts STEM Center of Excellence, St. Phillips School and Community Center, Twelve Hills Nature Center, and Voice of Hope Ministries.

Here, learners select locations and watch short videos or view pictures with text that describe how mathematical principles are present in their surroundings. For example, learners could use the app to discover how a painting by a local Latino artist uses ratio and scale, or how a ramp in downtown was designed with a specific slope to accommodate wheelchairs.

The iPad app was launched on the App Store in March 2025, with development ongoing for future releases to include more features—such as user generated content creation using Augmented Reality tools.

Visit the MathFinder website

Download the MathFinder App for iPad

Making Math Relevant and Engaging

MathFinder’s video-enabled mobile app inspires learners by showing them that math is everywhere. The app gives educators a unique set of tools to help students engage with mathematical concepts outside of the classroom environment, demystifying math and encouraging lifelong learning.

In this version release of the game, players are given access to Walkstop videos that have been created by talkStem to provide community-based examples of mathematical noticing to peak math interest and build math confidence. These videos allow learning concepts to be more relevant and visual by:

Tying concepts to the environment around us
Helping students to identify and define patterns, geometry, and scale
Encouraging students to ask their own questions

In 2025, the game was presented to middle and high-school girls in a residential STEAMERS Camp (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math, Education, Research, Social Media) at the Engage Dallas Conference for sentiment analysis on the MathFinders AR version. Testers were guided across the SMU campus in two evening trials.

STEAMERS Camp user reviews noted how enjoyable it was to have outdoor, hands-on exploration when learning algebraic principles. This helps to make it more visual, interactive, and applicable to everyday life as users begin to notice mathematical patterns in architecture and everyday objects around them—developing new ways of thinking through real-world observation and application.

“Very interactive! Loved it!”

“You don’t have to look hard to find math around you.”

“You start seeing math in everyday things.”

Project Development is Ongoing

The National Science Foundation research funding for this project has been extended through January of 2027 to allow the team to continue offering camps for learners to play both this app release version and an extended Augmented Reality version which allows even further access to content creation features including live content creation using advanced AR tools.

Research studies will continue to examine the impact of having learners create their own math walk stops at local informal learning sites, uploading pictures, descriptions, and linking audio they narrate, where they make observations about how math appears in their surroundings and pose interesting questions about STEM ideas and connections they wonder about.

Award Details

National Science Foundation, Advancing Informal STEM Learning
Award Number: DRL 2115393
PI: Dr. Candace Walkington (SMU)
Co-Pis: Dr. Anthony Petrosino (SMU), Dr. Koshi Dhingra (WalkSTEM); Dr. Cathy Ringstaff (WestEd), Elizabeth Stringer (SMU)
August 2021 - July 2026

Developer Credits

Lead Game Designer: Elizabeth Stringer
Lead Programmer: Brian Rust
Lead Artist: Martin Sawkins
AR Artist: Joowon MacDowell
AR Development Programmer: Matthew Butler
Backend Development Programmer: Steve Stringer
Guildhall Student and Alumni Contributors: Reed Devany, J.G. Gao, David Garrett, Pranav Jain
Principal Investigators: Candace Walkington, Koshi Dhingra, Anthony Petrosino, Elizabeth Stringer, & Cathy Ringstaff