Free rice!!

Today i got an email from my manager saying 'Web game provides rice for hungry'. Sounds interesting, right? I went to the site and was amazed by the concept. It's a great idea. Here's how it works -

1. The game - The web page shows you a word and you have to give its meaning. There are four options to choose from.
2. Whether you get it right or not, you go to the next question. For every right answer, 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations.
3. Where does the donation come from? Every time you click on an answer, the next page will show you a few ads at the bottom. Every time an ad is shown, the advertisers pay for it.

Isn't that simple?

The difficulty level of the word will depend on you. The game starts with a word of random difficulty. Three consecutive correct answers will result in a word from the next level. Every right answer takes you to a word one level below the previous one. So after some time you know your level. There are levels up to 50 and each word is assigned a level. The difficulty level of each word is also updated depending on how many people get it right. Isn't that a neat algorithm?

Now for the best part - After every right answer, they show you how many grains you have donated. That gives a wonderful feeling, at the same time giving you a chance to improve your vocabulary. It has a nice graphical display to boot !!

It kinda gets you hooked - and I kept doing this for a few minutes. Then the math guy in me took notice of the fact that 'number of grains' is no indication of how much it is and I was losing the motivation! So I googled a couple of things -
1. Is this site authentic? Yes, says the BBC - check this: Web game provides rice for hungry.
2. What is the weight of one grain of rice? On an average it is 28 mg.
3. How much rice a person needs in one meal (with other stuff of course)? 1 portion - about 50 gms.
Now 1 gm = 1000 mg (Didn't need to Google that!!). And 50 x 1000 / 28 = 1785.72 which can be rounded off to 1800. So here you go - the motivation - Play till you get 180 answers right - that gets you to donate 1800 grains or one portion of rice!!

It would roughly take half an hour to provide a decent meal to a poor man in some poverty stricken corner of the world - isn't that wonderful!! And yes - you can brag about your vocabulary level - I kindof settled at 36 :)

And while you are at math & rice, read this: Rice Rice Baby - very interesting!!

Click on the image below to start playing -