Learning the alphabet is a game most children play without thinking about it. For children with limited motor abilities, the tools can get in the way before the learning even starts.
Alphabets Got Talent started at Parsons in 2019, built for the Google Accessibility Game Jam. Michael Center, Beckett Melville, Lauren Owen, and I made it together. The idea was to teach the alphabet through Morse code, using just two inputs.
One is short, or low – the dit. One is long, or high – the dah. A child taps combinations and the screen shows an animal. A single dit is E in Morse code, and an elephant appears. The game runs in Unity, with animation, and the whole thing was built to feel like play.
Morse code as a teaching layer strips the input to its minimum. You do not need fine motor control. Two buttons and a sense of rhythm are enough.
Google Experiments featured it later. The page carries a gameplay video, the game download, the source code, and the project documentation.
