For this project, I decided to do a comparison between quipus, a prehistoric symbolic system, and friendship bracelets, a modern visual medium. Both of these mediums involve cords, knots, and colors. However, there are also some key differences between them, including the purpose, creation, and history of the two. This matching game focuses on five key ideas about these mediums and the similarities and differences between them.

I chose this idea for my project because my initial thought when I learned about quipus was that they reminded me a little bit of the friendship bracelets I used to make. Throughout elementary school, I loved making friendship bracelets with my friends, featuring different colors and designs to remind me of my friends and the fun times I had with them. They functioned as a visual medium for my friends and me as we wore bracelets featuring our favorite colors, flowers, and patterns to school to let everyone know we were friends. When I saw a photo of a quipu, the colorful strings and different types of knots reminded me of this fun childhood memory.

At first, comparing the two felt like a stretch, but as I did more research I discovered they were more similar than I thought. In fact, I learned that quipus and friendship bracelets have ancient origins, with quipus originating in South America, and friendship bracelets originating later in Central and South America! In the future, I would love to do more thorough research, specifically about the history and relationship between the two and if there is any overlap. However, for the purpose of this project, I am focused specifically on "modern" friendship bracelets and on the ways in which quipus and friendship bracelets communicate information and ideas.

Each of the five matching groups focuses on comparing and contrasting one key idea between these two types of mediums.

I spent a long time setting these up before realizing that the digital version of the game doesn't look the way I expected it to with all my information on it. However, the information is still on the cards. The photos can really only be seen on the paper version.