Simple Soroban

Btco

About this app

This application is a simple Japanese abacus (soroban / そろばん). It has a free mode where you can use the abacus freely, and a challenge mode with 4 operations (addition, subtraction, one and two digit multiplication, and division) and 3 difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard) where you must race against the clock to perform calculations.

Contains tutorials for:
* basic concepts
* addition
* subtraction
* one-digit multiplication
* two-digit multiplication
* division

Also has a custom challenge mode where you can set the number of questions, type of questions and difficulty.

(This is just a hobby project I'm doing for fun. This app is free and doesn't have in-app purchases or ads).

[PERMISSIONS USAGE]
This is a description of how permissions are used in this app.
Vibrate: The application can vibrate the phone to give user feedback. This can be enabled/disabled in the Settings screen.

[PRIVACY]
This application does not collect or transmit any data. Your settings, ranking and challenge times are stored locally on your phone only.
You can view the privacy policy here: http://bit.ly/simple-soroban-privacy

Ratings and reviews

Tutorials are actually better than all the websites I've found explaining how to perform arithmetic on an abacus. The challenges and tests are surprisingly difficult at times. I've tried using other apps for drilling myself on an actual abacus, but the features in this app combine everything I was hoping for to learn how to use an abacus. Love the different palettes for the built-in abacus, the sound effects - you can tell it's been a labor of love. And it's free of ads!

I like the straight forward simple interface and visual design. The timed challenges are great. I think the tutorials need more work; they are somewhat limited and don't allow you to experiment. They guide you through in only one approach and need more and varied examples. Otherwise this app works as advertised and I recommend it as good practice for adults new to the soroban.

It is a fantastic tool to learn soroban math and to promote mental arithmetic. I am learning it to teach my 14-year old twins, and using this app with it's instructions, practice exercises and challenges, it has taken me less than a week to master addition and subtraction of multiple digits. I've started learning multiplication and division, and this app is simply an indispensable aid to learning the soroban. Highly recommended, simple, elegant, to-the-point with absolutely no noise!

What's new

* New setting: Answer button (show an button to check the answer instead of auto-detecting correct answer)
* Code updated latest Android SDK for better compatibility
* Bug fixes and performance improvements
* New translations (Russian and Arabic)