The ColorTaiko! project will not run under IML formally in Spring 2026, but we do want to keep improving the game. If you are a student at UIUC and want to join this project in Spring 2026, talk to me in person soon (say, by coming to one of my two classes in Spring 2026.) This project will run as part of my independent IG3OR'S group. Experience: JavaScript ands React will be needed. General experience with algorithms, game design, web design are helpful. Weekly commitment is expected from participants.
The idea of this game originated from my article The topology and geometry of units and zero-divisors: origami. The article describes how certain colorings of bipartite graphs (if found) lead to counterexamples to Kaplansky conjectures - important problems in algebra. So if you can play the (coming) harder versions of the game till the end (bringing the success to 100%), then you will automatically produce a counterexample for this important math problem.
This project ran as an IML project in the Mathematics Department, UIUC, in Spring 2024, then continued independently in Fall 2025 and Spring 2026. We plan to continue improving the game in the foreseeable future, so come again and play again.
Thanks to the University of Illinois Campus Research Board for providing support for hosting this game on the UIUC domain, made possible by award RB22075 to Igor Mineyev in March 2022. Igor Mineyev's grant application to the Topology program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Fall 2023 asking for support for this game, for the research it is based on, and for the people involved in the project, was expressly NOT supported by NSF. This preliminary version of the game that you see here was created by our heroic efforts in spite of NSF's refusal to support that proposal.
More information will appear here as we proceed.
To learn how to play the game, just play it! There is an optional tutorial at the beginning.
In Fall 2025 (independent project, part of
IG3OR'S group):
Professor: Igor Mineyev.
Graduate mentor: Jihong Cai.
Undergraduate students: Haozhe Li, Wenchang Qi, Prithiv Sudhakar, Madeline Zhao.
In Spring 2025 (as an IML project):
Professor: Igor Mineyev.
Graduate mentor: Jihong Cai.
Undergraduate students:
Arjun Chatterjee, Matthew Guerra, Christopher Monzon,
Wenchang Qi, Nick Wong, Linda Yan,
Yixu Zheng.
In Fall 2024 (as an IML project):
Professor: Igor Mineyev.
Graduate mentors: Jihong Cai, Zishen Qu.
Undergraduate students:
Maxwell Liu, Shrut Patel, Ila Petrovic, Wenchang Qi.
In Spring 2024 (as an IML project):
Professor: Igor Mineyev.
Graduate mentors: Aziz Bouland, Manisha Garg.
Undergraduate students: Enson Gai, Aditya Kshirsagar, Kevin Liu, Anvitha Manepalli, Jeongjae Park, Aditya Ved.
The link to this game and other things are available from Igor Mineyev's Math Page.