Academics
BandPals
One tune, many instruments. Hear a mystery sound and guess how it is made — hit, pluck, blow, bow or shake — then meet the kora, the erhu, the gamelan, the đàn tranh and more. Play “Frère Jacques” on each one in your own comfortable key. Ages 6–8.
Built for sittings of about 15 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
Meet your mentor
Every Spark & Anvil app has a friendly mentor character that demonstrates, praises, and patiently scaffolds learning. On-device AI personalizes the mentor's responses to your kid's progress — never connecting to a server, never collecting data.
#C2410C Distributed-narrative cast
Meet the cast
Five friends, five ways to make a sound: Tumtum hits, Plinka plucks, Breezle blows, Strindle bows and Shakka shakes. Every instrument in the world belongs to one of their families.
Tumtum
Hits - drums and gongs
Plinka
Plucks - strings you pull and let go
Breezle
Blows - air through a pipe
Strindle
Bows - a bow pulled across a string
Shakka
Shakes - rattles and shakers
What's inside
Learning goal
One tune, many instruments. Hear a mystery sound and guess how it is made — hit, pluck, blow, bow or shake — then meet the kora, the erhu, the gamelan, the đàn tranh and more. Play “Frère Jacques” on each one in your own comfortable key. Ages 6–8.
Question kits
16 curriculum-aligned kits × 25 questions = 400 questions per app, mapped to recognized standards.
On-device AI mentor
FoundationModels-powered hints, feedback, and adaptive difficulty — all running locally.
How BandPals handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ No ads, no in-app purchases — you pay once
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ Parental controls + session limits + content filters built in
BandPals runs on ForgeKit — the open-source Swift Package Manager framework that powers every Spark & Anvil app. ForgeKit ensures consistent accessibility, COPPA compliance, and design language across the portfolio, so your kid's progress and preferences feel coherent across every app they touch.
Coming to the App Store
BandPals is in active development. Email us to hear when it ships — no marketing, no spam, just a one-shot launch announcement.
Email me at launch