BrainHack is a startup concept that creates digital education tools. One such tool is the Memory Palace Creator, an app that helps the user to memorize information by tapping into their spatial memory.
Team & Support
In collaboration with Aaleem Jiwa (London Business School, London) and Ali Al-Suhail (London Business School, London)
Background
Humans evolved to remember locations and landmarks, so that we can navigate our environment. We did not, however, evolve the ability to easily memorize the lists of information necessary to ace tests or remember complex procedures.
When so called ‘Memory Athletes’ compete with one-another to memorize digits of pi or multiple decks of cards, they use a technique called the ‘Method of Loci’, sometimes referred to as the ‘Memory Palace Technique’. Using this method, Memory Athletes match information with landmarks along a route that they imagine navigating. When they need to recall the information, they imagine that they are walking the route and the memorized information comes to them quickly and easily. Using this technique, Memory Athletes have been able to memorize more than 60,000 digits of pi along with many other seemingly superhuman memory feats.
Though powerful, the Memory Palace technique is not commonly used. The goal with BrainHack was to create a tool that would make using the Memory Palace technique fast and easy.
Concept mockup
Medium
The BrainHack prototype (available here) was made in React.js and features a custom cloud API to process each Memory Palace video.
Concept app design for a larger BrainHack vision that includes the Memory Palace Creator alongside a number of other digital learning tools.
Embodiment
The BrainHack Memory Palace Creator (available here) allows users to create a digital memory palace - a first person video of a famous location with the information that they want to memorize superimposed. To use the digital Memory Palace, a user just has to watch the video a few time and the information to be memorized will be associated with the route shown in the video. To recall the information, the user simply recounts the route in the video.
The Memory Palace Creator was created as a prototype representing a larger vision for how technology could better enable to education online.
BrainHack won fourth place out of 207 contestants at the London Business School Launchpad program.
