Birth of this idea

One puzzle so far – this site is currently in development.

For several months I have been looking for an AI (I prefer to call him Al, as in the abbreviated form of Allen) idea as a second stream of income. We toyed with the idea of starting a youtube channel, but our son, the main star, lacked interest. Although he goes to a private school and is the top of his class, we place emphasis on home schooling and on developing his skills and knowledge beyond the scope of the school. My wife started using chatgpt to help develop lesson plans, but with the coming AI revolution and job displacements, it seems that the existing school structure is archaic, being mostly memory based and not focusing on creativity and problem solving, which I feel will be more important in the near future once everything changes due to Al.

So I asked Al his thoughts on this subject and am copying below our ensuing conversation. Note that I have a lot of IT knowledge, including programming and WordPress development, and that even with the great help of GPT, it was still a challenge to implement everything and my general understanding of these matters greatly facilitated progress. In any case, from the below you should see how useful Al can be and give you a glimpse into how things will be done in the future. When I’m sure Al will be able to do many of these steps for me. In any case a creative and problem solving mind will be able to use Al as a tool to accomplish great things.

On this page
1. What we actually want to train (beyond “memory”)
2. Puzzle concepts we can build into small web apps
A. “Many Ways Maze” (planning + multiple solutions)
B. “Crazy Uses” Object Lab (divergent thinking)
C. Story Mixer (story + causality)
D. Pattern Builder with Multiple Right Answers
3. Tech stack: what I’d suggest
4. First working puzzle: “Many Ways Maze”
How to use this
1. Simple voice system: built-in browser TTS
2. Updated Level 5 maze with voice instructions
1. How the self-rating / progression can work
2. Updated Level 5 Maze with voice + rating
How this supports your Level 5 → 5.5 → 6 idea
Conclusion

My question to Al and his responses below:

I got a new idea I was wondering if you could develop with me. As you probably know AI is predicted to take over a lot of jobs and people are wondering what will become of humanity. Then you have all these YouTube channels which seem to focus on monetization and only make people stupider. I believe that education will have to be redesigned, move away from a memory based system, because computers naturally can remember much better than humans, towards nurturing creativity and problem solving such that successful people can use AI as a tool to create new products, adding to the new age of abundance, while those who are too lazy to exercise their brains and creativity can become content consumers of those products. I would like to start off by focusing on my five year old son. He is at the top of his class, has a good brain, and we have been good parents at encouraging his creativity and self-confidence. We did not want to be “don’t parents”, as we labelled it. Those parents who keep saying “Don’t do this, don’t do that, you must do this and that…”, which only stifles creativity and mostly serves the convenience of parents who do not want to “deal with” overly creative and experimental offspring. That is just lazy people creating more lazy people. So I would like to ask you if you are capable of thinking up fun and engaging puzzles which would exercise our son’s creativity and problem solving skills. He can also give us feedback on the puzzles you create, to help make them more challenging and fun. Perhaps in php, javascript or what do you suggest? Either standalone or embedded into WordPress pages, which I am already proficient at. Desktop, iPad and mobile versions. With a little room on the side for advertising. Not only do I want to help prepare our son for the coming age of AI, but hopefully encourage others to start using their brains more. After all, AI can easily be used as a tool of control by the elite to further dumb down the population, who will wear masks at the snap of a finger without any critical thought whatsoever. Can you help me?

Yes, I can absolutely help you with this. And I love the way you’re thinking about your son’s future — using AI as a power tool, not a crutch.

Let me break this into three parts:

  1. Big picture: what kinds of thinking we want to train
  2. Concrete puzzle ideas for a smart 5-year-old
  3. A first working web puzzle (HTML+JS) you can drop into WordPress

1. What we actually want to train (beyond “memory”)

For your son and kids like him, I’d aim at:

  • Divergent thinking – many possible answers instead of one “correct” one
  • Planning & sequencing – thinking a few steps ahead
  • Pattern spotting – but with creative patterns, not just rote
  • Hypothesis & testing – “What happens if I try this? Let’s see.”
  • Story + systems thinking – combining characters, places, rules

In other words: puzzles that can’t be brute-forced by memorization, and where AI would be best used as a helper (“Generate more ideas”) rather than as a replacement.

2. Puzzle concepts we can build into small web apps

Here are some specific puzzle types that fit a 5-year-old, especially one who’s bright and has you as a guide.

A. “Many Ways Maze” (planning + multiple solutions)

  • A small grid with a character (robot/pirate/etc.) and a goal (treasure/star).

  • The child builds a sequence of arrows (↑ ↓ ← →) to reach the goal.

  • Goal is not just to reach it once, but e.g.:

    • “Can you find three different ways to reach the treasure?”

  • Teaches: planning, sequences, exploring alternatives, not fearing mistakes.

B. “Crazy Uses” Object Lab (divergent thinking)

  • Show a simple object (spoon, box, shoe…).
  • Prompt: “Can you think of 3 silly ways to use this?”
  • He speaks his answers; you type them in or just talk through.
  • The app can show a few sample silly uses after he’s tried, to nudge creativity.
  • Teaches: creativity, analogy, flexible thinking (“What else could this be?”).

(We can later gamify with simple icons to choose from, but this can start as parent-guided.)

C. Story Mixer (story + causality)

  • Three decks of cards: Character, Place, Problem.

  • The app randomly shows one from each:

    • “Alien” + “Playground” + “Lost a shoe”

  • He has to tell a story that connects them.

  • For older kids you can add constraints: “Story must include a surprising ending.”

D. Pattern Builder with Multiple Right Answers

  • Show a short pattern like: 🔴 🔵 🔴 🔵 _

  • Instead of “What comes next?” as a single correct answer, you ask:

    • “What could come next? Show one way that makes sense, then another way.”

  • Or let him drag shapes to build his own pattern and explain the rule.

3. Tech stack: what I’d suggest

Given your skills and setup:

  • Front-end: pure HTML + CSS + vanilla JavaScript

    • Runs in browser: desktop, iPad, mobile.

    • Easy to embed in WordPress: either in a Custom HTML block, or a simple shortcode that echoes the HTML+JS.

  • Back-end (optional for later): PHP + SQLite / WP database

    • To store scores, how many puzzles solved, his created stories, etc.

  • Ads: Just leave a <div id="ad-space"></div> area in the layout; later you can plug in AdSense or your own banners.

To start, I’d keep everything client-side and simple so you can iterate fast based on your son’s feedback.

4. First working puzzle: “Many Ways Maze”

Here’s a self-contained example of the “Many Ways Maze” puzzle that:

  • Is mobile-friendly

  • Has a side column reserved for ads/extra content

  • Encourages multiple solutions instead of just one

You can paste this into a WordPress page using a Custom HTML block, or into a simple PHP template.

How to use this

  • In WordPress:

    • Create a new page → add a “Custom HTML” block → paste the whole snippet.

    • View on desktop + phone to confirm the layout.

  • You’ve already got a ready-made sidebar for ads or “educational explanation.”

  • Let your son play with it, and you can tell me:

    • Was this too easy/too hard?

    • Did he understand the goal quickly?

    • Did he enjoy “finding another way,” or did he just want “the right answer”?

From there, we can:

  • Make the maze random

  • Add obstacles he can place

  • Add “funny goals” (reach the ice cream vs. the star)

  • Start wiring in PHP/backend if you want to store his best paths or stats

If you want, next step I can design:

  • A Story Mixer puzzle with drag-and-drop images, or
  • A Crazy Uses experimental lab (maybe as a simple “parent-guided” WordPress page with a bit of JS to randomize objects)

You’re aiming at exactly the right thing: raising a kid who uses AI as a co-creator, not a babysitter. I’m here for the long haul on this project with you and your son.

That sounds great. Forgot to mention. My son cannot read well yet, so would it be possible for you to generate some sort of voice system which could read out loud the instructions? The instructions could be written as well, to help him learn how to read while he is listening to them be read out loud. His responses can always be with the mouse to make things easier for everyone. I suspect there will be many older people out there who might find this challenging and fun as well. I will go ahead and slowly implement all your suggestions and get back to you once he starts using it, giving you his feedback so that we can all together develop this further. As he gets older more people could find this interesting. I plan to set up levels based on his age, so we are now officially starting to work on Level 5.

Love it. 👊 Level 5 has officially begun.

You’re absolutely right: if he can’t read well yet, audio instructions + simple text is perfect. He hears it and sees it, so reading slowly catches up to thinking.

Let’s do three things right now:

  1. Explain a simple, built-in browser voice system
  2. Give you an updated Level 5 “Many Ways Maze” with speech built in
  3. Show where you can hook in more speech later (for older users / other puzzles)

1. Simple voice system: built-in browser TTS

We can use the browser’s Web Speech API:

  • No server, no PHP, no extra libraries.

  • Works in Chrome/Edge and most modern browsers (desktop + Android, iPad usually OK).

  • We just:

    • Put the instruction in a <p> element

    • Add a 🔊 Listen button

    • When he clicks, JavaScript calls speechSynthesis.speak(...)

If speech isn’t supported (old device), it quietly falls back to just text.

2. Updated Level 5 maze with voice instructions

Here’s a complete drop-in snippet you can paste into a WordPress Custom HTML block.

New things vs previous version:

  • “Level 5” label
  • Simple child-friendly instruction text
  • 🔊 “Listen” button that reads the instructions
  • speak(text) function you can reuse later anywhere on the page
Note that level 6 begins when he turns 6, which I believe is on Feb21. So level 5.5 could be when he is five and a half years old, so others can compare themselves to my son based on their age difference. Perhaps his higher aptitude will represent a motivational factor for them. But you gave me an idea. Can you expand your game/puzzle so that each one can have a rating system at the bottom to answer the feedback questions you suggested, preferably without the need for a parent to always sit there and supervise/participate but to make the puzzle game system more capable of teaching my son without or with less parental supervision required? Perhaps if another user presses the This is Too Easy button, it could jump him/her forward faster (assuming that over the years we have created many many puzzle games), so that each person can easily progress at their own speed?

This is such a cool project you’re building with him. Level 5, Level 5.5, Level 6 as an age + ability ladder makes perfect sense.

Yes: we can absolutely make the game ask for its own feedback and gently adapt, so it doesn’t always need a parent sitting there. I’ll do two things:

  1. Explain the idea of an adaptive level / rating system in simple terms

  2. Give you an updated Many Ways Maze – Level 5 with:

    • Voice instructions

    • A “Too easy / Just right / Too hard” rating at the bottom

    • A little internal “skill score” saved in localStorage, so in future you can use it to jump them ahead to harder games

1. How the self-rating / progression can work

Per puzzle/game we add:

  • A short question: “How was this puzzle?”

  • Three child-friendly buttons (with emojis):

    • 😴 Too easy

    • 🙂 Just right

    • 😵 Too hard

  • When they click:

    • We update a skill score stored in localStorage

      • “Too easy” → score goes up more

      • “Just right” → score goes up a bit

      • “Too hard” → score goes down a bit

  • From that score we compute an estimated level, e.g.

    • Score around 0 → Level ~5.0

    • Score higher → Level 5.3, 5.5, 5.8…

  • You can later use that to:

    • Decide which puzzle file to load next

    • Or show a message like:

      “The computer thinks you might be ready for Level 5.5 puzzles soon!”

For now we’ll:

  • Implement the rating UI + saved score

  • Show a “Suggested level” indicator based on how they rate the puzzle

  • Keep the actual “jump to another puzzle” as a hook you can wire up once you have multiple games.

And we’ll make the rating itself voice-supported, so he doesn’t need to read the question.

2. Updated Level 5 Maze with voice + rating

You can paste this whole thing into a Custom HTML block in WordPress.

It includes:

  • The existing Level 5 maze

  • 🔊 Listen for the main instructions

  • A rating area with:

    • “How was this puzzle?”

    • 3 buttons (Too easy / Just right / Too hard)

    • 🔊 Listen for the rating question

    • A “Computer thinks you are around Level X.X” line

  • An internal playerScore saved under creativeMazePlayerScore in localStorage.

How this supports your Level 5 → 5.5 → 6 idea

  • You keep your chronological levels (5, 5.5, 6 based on age).

  • The game keeps a skill estimate for “this type of puzzle.”

  • Over time, if he (or another user) keeps pressing “Too easy”, the playerScore climbs and the suggested level might show 5.4, 5.6, 5.8…

  • You can later say:

    • “If suggested level ≥ 5.5, send them to Level 5.5 group of puzzles”

    • “If suggested level ≥ 6.0, show Level 6 puzzles even if the child is only 5.7 years old”

So kids who are behind or ahead can self-sort just by pressing a face that matches how the game feels.

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Conclusion

Well, you get the idea. Basically I was getting ideas from Al as he was answering my questions, so it became a sort of brain storming session while I developed it. I was learning at the same time I was implementing. This is just an example of how creative human thinking can work with Al as a productivity tool to accomplish great things.

I can see how Al can be used by the elite to control humanity even more than it does now, but I hope that exercising creative thinking and problem solving will enlighten people or future generations to make it harder for this to happen.

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