Fairfax Co. middle schooler turns pandemic passion into patented game

Whenever Fairfax County Virginia eighth grader Kasra Karimi played a board championship as a child he consistently considered procedures to make it more fun During the pandemic when his classes were online and he was bored at home he considered other unique forms of entertainment He was still in elementary school at the time and there were boxes from Costco and Amazon orders lying around They provided the inspiration for what Karimi described as a series of minigames he crafted for himself just for fun In one matter he grabbed a Ping-Pong ball and Ferrero Rocher chocolate box and created a math contest He explained the rules to his dad and the pair discussed procedures to improve it Years later Karimi now a apprentice at Thoreau Middle School has received a patent for the tournament hoping it helps make math enjoyable for students who may dread the subject The whole point of this encounter is to educate and incorporate math and a competition into one Karimi mentioned It does that using a series of inserts Karimi created Players throw the ball into one of the chocolate box s slots which have numbers and equations They range from simple addition and subtraction to figures as complex as square roots Each one either increases or decreases a participant s point total and there are various approaches to win all based on points This can be played from a spectrum from preschoolers to college to precalculus Karimi noted He fine-tuned the competition with his dad Pegeman Karimi who played for about two hours the first time he learned about the idea It was so much fun Pegeman Karimi reported You had to do all this addition subtraction division multiplication all those math equations that you have to do Pegeman Karimi works for the U S Patent and Trademark Office and he and his son sat down to write what he thought the competition is They conducted searches about similar products that may already exist They crafted a patent application hired a lawyer to review it and learned there was an expedited process for first-time filers We took advantage of that one as soon as we filed our patent within about three weeks it was assigned to an examiner and within about two-and-a-half months three months Kasra received a patent Pegeman Karimi mentioned The championship has evolved and now includes both the physical variation and an app version Beyond making math fun Kasra is hoping his work encourages other students to patent their own ideas A lot of kids have ideas but someone necessities to pay attention to them and make sure these ideas become patents Pegeman Karimi stated Likely at chosen point they become toys or something manufactured Source