Activities/Yupana

Yupana

Yupana is an Incan counting device similar to an abacus.

How to use the Yupana

The beads are organized in columns, where the units (1s) column is farthest to the right; tens (10s) is second from the right; hundreds (100s) is third from the right, etc.

Click on a dot and it will reverse its state (color), and either add or substract value from that column.

More details regarding the history and use of the Yupana can be found here:

Yupana como herramienta pedagogica.pdf

• Did you know that you can use the yupana over the network with your friends?

An alternative interpretation

There are some alternative interpretations of how the Yupana works, e.g., [1]. In this version, the base is 20, and rows with multiple dots are counted as 2s.

Yet another interpretation (by the author) is that the factor of each bead is based on the number of beads in its containing box.

Both of these alternative interpretations are available under the "spanner" toolbar beginning with Version 3. And in a subsequent version, the learner will be able to explore their own interpretations of how the Yupana works.

Where to get Yupana

The Yupana activity is available for download from the Sugar activity portal: Yupana

The source code is available on the Sugar Labs Gitorious server.