A start-up entrepreneur, Vikas Gupta has come up with a little robot that will teach your kids how to code. Gupta, an engineer who works in Silicon Valley, worries his 2-year old daughter won’t have a suitable education in a wold run by technology.
Gupta grew up in India, and has seen the lack of development in programmers in our U.S. education system.
http://www.hyphenet.com/blog/play-teaches-children-program-robots/
Gupta and other engineers with Google, Apple, and Frog Design, have formed Play-i, a programmable robot aimed at young children, to make learning how to program robots easy and fun.
The crafty engineers have launched a crowd-funding campaign aimed at raising $250,000. If they meet their goal, the Play-i robots will be mass-produced for kids ages five and up.
The Vision
The idea behind Play-i is to teach kids how to string code together to create applications. An iPad is needed to visually display the kid-friendly programming language. By stringing together code commands through the iPad, kids can control movements and activities of the robot.
http://www.hyphenet.com/blog/play-teaches-children-program-robots/
There are two character robots for the Play-i – Yana and Bo. Yana, is a single robot “storyteller” that will cost $49. Bo, “the teacher”, sits atop three other balls with wheels that will cost $149.
Yana and Bo will allow kids to manipulate lights, movement and sounds of the two robots.
Google Ventures put in $1 million to Gupta’s team of seven engineers early this year. If you would like to help fund the project, you can go to Play-i.com. You can also reserve one of the Play-i robots to be a part of the test market.
It’s a tangible way for kids to get programming at a much younger age.” says Google Ventures partner Andy Wheeler. “Hopefully, within a few years they are expanding into retail and expanding the software and hardware components … to allow the toy to grow with the child.”Hopefully the company will reach its goal of $250,000 in the next 30 days. Do you think this is a good way for our children to keep up with technology today? Watch the inspirational video below!
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Valley engineers want kids to program robots – USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/10/28/valley-engineers-want-kids-to-program-robots/3197381/
October 28, 2013
Play-i looks to crowdfunding to teach kids to code – C|Net
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57609596-235/play-i-looks-to-crowdfunding-to-teach-kids-to-code/
October 28, 2013
https://www.play-i.com/
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