More than 200 students at the William H. Barton Intermediate School have spent the last month playing a new game called Mighty Mathletes created and coded by Queensbury High School senior Ryan Greenstein. 
The program includes seven games that challenge students to use their multiplication and division skills in fun and creative ways. Dicey Doors allows students to answer math facts as they try to avoid the monster hiding behind one of four doors. Fishing Fiesta lets students to correctly answer math questions, then cast a line and catch a fish. Potion Panic encourages students to use Mathbux to buy potions, while Cone Craze lets them build ice cream cones with toppings. Balloon Blast is a multiple choice game, and Memory Match involves students flipping over and matching up math fact cards. A multiplayer game called Risky Rolls lets students play against each other and roll dice on a game board.
The app also includes power ups, a trophy system, and lets users create friends lists.
“This has a society, so if they complete a math challenge in a certain amount of time and accuracy, and pay a fee of 1,000 Mathbux of in-game currency, they can get in,” Ryan explained.
Teachers are allowed to see progress students are making as well. More than 40 teachers at WHBI are currently using the program in their classrooms.
The mathematics app was part of Ryan’s “Creativity, Activity, Service” project, which is a requirement of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.
“I wanted to do something that I thought would represent me in the CAS project,” Ryan said. “I wanted to make it special, and I wanted to put in some effort.”
It took Ryan — a self-taught computer programmer — about a year to write 4,925 lines of code in Modified JavaScript.
“I love creating things,” said Ryan, who wants to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study computer programming.
Ryan is ranked No. 5 in his class, plays varsity tennis, and is a member of the National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society and Key Club. He also sits on the district’s Safety Committee and is the senior representative for the district’s Crisis Response Team.
Mighty Mathletes has garnered rave reviews from students at WHBI, who are particularly enamored with Fishing Fiesta.
Like many of the fourth graders in his class, Lucas Hummel is particularly fond of Fishing Fiesta.
“It’s fun,” said Lucas, who has already earned 128 Mathbux. “You can catch mythical fish and the rarest fish.”