MONNOM 2026 Update: From Academic Project to Independent Initiative and New Web Infrastructure

The foundations of MONNOM were laid with İpek Kay's PhD project, which combined physical and digital play environments. Supported initially by a TÜBİTAK/ITU scholarship, this process evolved first into a startup venture, and then into an independent initiative. Supported by field tests, workshops, and biennial participations since 2020, the project has reached its current version as of 2026.

Monnom App: Touchless Drawing Infrastructure

Our iOS application, Monnom, uses the Apple Vision Framework to integrate the device camera and hand movements directly into a drawing interface. The core technical features of the app are as follows:

1. Computer Vision and Hand Tracking: The interaction mechanism relies on the "Pinch" gesture, formed by bringing the thumb and index finger together. Using the Vision Framework, frames are analyzed and hand coordinates are projected onto the screen.
2. Color Match: To reduce camera noise when extracting colors from physical objects, the color average of a 7x7 pixel area is calculated instead of a single pixel.
3. Game Modes: Includes Free Draw, Pattern Rain, Time Attack, and AR Face Paint modes, all based on physical movement.
4. Privacy and Synchronization: Image processing is performed entirely on-device; camera data is never saved or streamed. With the Firebase infrastructure, data created in Guest Mode is transferred to the cloud without any data loss when the user logs in with "Sign in with Apple."

You can review and download the MONNOM app directly from the App Store here: MONNOM App Store

Playmonnom.com: Design, Development, and SEO Infrastructure

On the web side, we focused on the following areas during the interface design and development processes:

1. Admin Panel: We developed a Next.js and Firebase Admin SDK-based panel to enable content updates without waiting for App Store approval ("Zero-Update" architecture). New content is automatically detected by the iOS client and downloaded to the cache.
2. Blog Structure: We created a dynamic blog system integrated directly with the admin panel.
3. SEO and Architecture: We built a frontend architecture covering technical SEO, redirects, SEO MX requirements, and metadata management for search engine visibility.

This is the current app and web structure of MONNOM, which we have been developing based on research and testing processes since 2020. You can reach out to playmonnom.com for more details about the project.