An API for Math

I couldn't find an open source project that I wanted to contribute to so I started my own! I decided that providing and API for Math questions might help Education technology creators prototype rapidly across many platforms. Math concepts are quite familiar to most programmers so hopefully there isn't too much of a barrier to entry for those wanting to contribute. You can find the repository for the API here.

I'm also working on having a centralized user database so that users can work on their math skills and track their progress across the sites using the API. Something like Parse but with a document based DB structure.

Heres a little example of using the API to build a subtraction quiz:

See the Pen RPXrzN by Donald McKendrick (@ddmck) on CodePen.

The JS code to generate the never ending quiz that gets harder the higher your score gets:

$(document).ready(function() {
  var num1, num2;
  var getQuestion = function(number) {
    $.post("http://mathapi.herokuapp.com/subtraction.json",
      { max: 10 + number }, 
      function(data, status){
        num1 = data.num1;
        num2 = data.num2;
        $('#num1').val(num1);
        $('#num2').val(num2);
        $('#answer').val("");
        $('#labelNum1').html(num1);
        $('#labelNum2').html(num2);
      }
    );
  }

  getQuestion(0);

  $("#question").on('submit', function(ev){
    ev.preventDefault();
    $.post("http://mathapi.herokuapp.com/subtractionchecker.json", 
      { num1: $('#num1').val(),
        num2: $('#num2').val(),
        answer: $('#answer').val()
      }, function(data, status) {
        if (data.correct === true) {
          score = parseInt($('#score').val());
          $('#score').val(score + 1);
          $('#showScore').html(score + 1);
          getQuestion(score);
        } else {
          $('#answer').val("");
        }
      }
    );
  });
});

On the API side (a simple Sinatra app that responds with JSON):

def subtractionGenerator(opts = {})  
  num1 = rand(opts[:max].to_i)
  num2 = rand(num1)
  { :num1 => num1, :num2 => num2 }.to_json
end

def subtractionChecker(opts = {})  
  if opts[:num1].to_i - opts[:num2].to_i == opts[:answer].to_i
    returnCorrect
  else
    returnIncorrect
  end
end

def returnCorrect  
  { :correct => true }.to_json
end

def returnIncorrect  
  { :correct => false }.to_json
end

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