Since inventing and bringing Numenko to the market I have spent a considerable amount of time on the internet attempting to find ways of getting to a larger market.
Sometimes I succeed in finding new ways of advertising the game and sometimes I simply meet a lot of interesting people with interesting products of their own.
One of those people was a lady from a town called Sharon in Pennsylvania in the USA. Sharon was the name of the town! This ladies name was Stephanie Longstreet and she invented a new version of playing Bingo.
Stephanie had always worked in an office but after taking some computer training she felt ready for a career change. She decided to introduce computer lessons in retirement homes and soon accepted a job as an activities director.
Stephanie worked as an activities director at a local assisted-living facility and a retirement community for several years when she spotted a problem with the bingo sessions.
“Bingo is just about the most popular activity that can be put on the activity calendar” she said. “The residents with impairments found it too difficult to focus on the numbers and they would get upset and leave the room.”
Because of this Stephanie decided to create a new game, Flip Bingo, a game aimed at helping those with low vision, dementia, Alzheimer’s, autism and Asberger’s disease. Flip Bingo has been accepted in her local area and is now being sold nationally via her web site.
As is the norm with most new ideas, Stephanie’s first attempt to enlarge the regular bingo cards was unsuccessful – the residents were still having the same problems with all the numbers – she began to do a bit more in-depth research into bingo cards. After a lot of research and mock ups she created her prototype bingo cards.
Her solution was large black numbers against a white background. She also eliminated unnecessary numbers and placed the numbers into patterns on the new bingo cards.
After some modifications she came up with her current version of Flip Bingo under the business name of SLongstreet Enterprises LLC.
The cards come in more traditional styles to offer a greater challenge, and a low-vision card. The Flip Bingo cards are easy on the eye because of the stark contrast of black and white that helps those with vision impairments.
Stephanie is also introducing Flip Bingo into schools, and she is working on a maths version with flash cards which would allow a student to solve a maths problem and the answer is a number on the playing card.
Flip Bingo is not only a fun and entertaining game; it is also giving those with vision impairments the ability to socialise in their communities, and helping children with their number skills.
More details from www.flipbingo.com
