STEM
SortTales
Five ways to sort a list — and a surprise: the FASTEST one depends on the list. Meet Bubbly, Inserta, Scanna, Quicka and Merga, then predict how many comparisons each makes and watch the bars race. You will feel "Big-O" for yourself — why the simple sorter wins on an almost-tidy list, and why the clever one wins when the list is a mess. Real, tiny, deterministic sorters run right in your browser. Ages 9–14.
#3f7bd6 Distributed-narrative cast
Meet the cast
SortTales' crew ARE the five classic sorting algorithms — the cast IS the curriculum: each character's defining habit IS its algorithm. Bubbly runs Bubble sort (swap out-of-order neighbours until none are left); Inserta runs Insertion sort (slip each new item into its place); Scanna runs Selection sort (scan the whole rest every time for the smallest — so she never notices the list is already tidy); Quicka runs Quick sort (pick a pivot, split into smaller/bigger, repeat). Mentor Merga runs Merge sort — split in half, sort each half, merge — and keeps the honest point: the FASTEST sorter depends on the list, not on cleverness. Painted portraits + storybooks are a tracked follow-on (R-WEB-CLONE-SPAWN-TRACKED); a text-only crew + flat, deterministic on-device sorters ship now — nothing leaves the device.
Bubbly
Runs Bubble sort — compares each pair of neighbours and swaps the ones out of order, bubbling the biggest to the end; fast on a nearly-tidy list, slow on a mess
Inserta
Runs Insertion sort — builds the sorted list one item at a time, slipping each new item into its place; great on almost-sorted lists
Scanna
Runs Selection sort — scans the whole rest of the list every time to pick the smallest, so she always does the same work whether the list is a mess or already sorted (she never notices)
Quicka
Runs Quick sort — picks a pivot, splits the list into smaller and bigger, then repeats on each half; usually quick, hence the name
Merga
(Mentor) Runs Merge sort — keeps splitting the list in half until each piece is one item, then merges them back in order; stays fast even on big, messy lists (that steadiness is O(n log n))
What's inside
Learning goal
Five ways to sort a list — and a surprise: the FASTEST one depends on the list. Meet Bubbly, Inserta, Scanna, Quicka and Merga, then predict how many comparisons each makes and watch the bars race. You will feel "Big-O" for yourself — why the simple sorter wins on an almost-tidy list, and why the clever one wins when the list is a mess. Real, tiny, deterministic sorters run right in your browser. Ages 9–14.
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.
Mentored by Merga — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How SortTales 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
- ✅ COPPA compliant under the 2026 FTC amendments
- ✅ Parental controls + session limits + content filters built in
SortTales 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
SortTales 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