Making music child’s play at Uclan

Making music child’s play - News & Events - University of Central Lancashire

School of Art, Design and Performance

Type of Story	News				Success
Discipline		Design
06.09.2012
Games Design students design Plinky Plonk App for ipad – now live
Two of our Games Design students has been working with ‘Jane Cull ‘ and Bev Bush to design and develop an App for kiddies to have fun learning to play the piano. http://www.plinky-plonk.com/ Jane Cull was inspired to create Plinky Plonk by her 2 young children. The idea was to create a fun and engaging game that would teach children how to read music and play the piano. The App also works with a real piano to recognize the notes that are played. Jane is a working mum by day, who has taught herself how to write apps by night. Jane gained the highest mark in Grade 8 piano, age 6, playing in the National Youth Orchestra and later leading the Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra. She believes every child should have equal opportunity to develop musical talent. Jane can’t thank enough the considerable help from students and staff at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in developing Plinky Plonk. “It would not have been possible without them. Bev Bush, Senior lecturer and Games Design Course Leader became an advisor on the project and brought in UCLAN Students Emma Smith and Hannah Spikings to create the game graphics. “ Students, Emma and Hannah found the experience very valuable in terms of working with a client in the real world and actually seeing a project come to fruition and be published as part of a professional platform.