The Cruncher

The Cruncher is a spreadsheet program aimed at children aged ten and up. Most of the content is a regular spreadsheet program combined with a graphing tool with bar and pie charts where children can build a sheet and work out math problems. There are also a number of pre-defined projects, such as a spreadsheet to keep track of how long someone needs to save to buy a walkman or a mountain bike, or calculating the costs to see if it is possible to get a certain pet or not. Aside from the playful colors and (animated) stickers with illustrations that can be added to the sheets from a library, game elements are provided through the tutorial. A purple character guides children through the basics with some mini-games that teach spreadsheet basics, for instance combining an animal (2) with a container (A) to explain the concept of cells (A2). There is also a print function.