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UI/UX · EdTech · Interactive Design · 2026
A hybrid physical-digital educational kit for Irish primary school Stage 3 maths. Physical 3D-printed food models connect to a digital platform via NFC tags, creating an interactive learning experience where the two worlds work together. The project won the Best Prototype award at the MTU Prize for Innovation.
Cook & Learn is a final year project built for Irish primary school Stage 3 maths, designed around the 2023 Irish Primary Mathematics Curriculum. The idea was to make abstract maths concepts tangible by anchoring them in food, cooking, and physical interaction. Students scan 3D-printed food models on a physical base, which triggers curriculum-aligned activities on the digital platform.
The project features a bilingual English and Irish interface, progress tracking, a guided tour for first-time users, and a full question template system that covers multiple strands and levels. It is built on Supabase and deployed on Netlify.
I was responsible for the entire platform side of the project, alongside designing and 3D modelling the physical food props in Blender based on illustrations produced by my project partner, then 3D printing them for the final prototype. I also built the physical scanning controller, assembling the ESP32 and PN532 NFC reader with arcade buttons into the finished hardware unit. On the platform, I designed and built all five pages from scratch, covering UI/UX, all front-end development, and the full Supabase database architecture including session tracking, answer logging, and row-level security. I implemented Web Bluetooth API communication between the browser and the NFC scanning base, fixed a core answer evaluation bug, rebuilt the activity and results screens, added a progress tracking page, a guided tour for first-time users, and a bilingual interface toggle. The curriculum work involved aligning all question content with the 2026 Irish Primary Mathematics Curriculum for Stage 3, covering Number, Measures, and Shape and Space across difficulty levels. Cook and Learn won the Best Prototype award at the MTU Prize for Innovation in 2026.
Cook & Learn won the Best Prototype award at the MTU Prize for Innovation in 2026.