Now Coding For Kids With Project Bloks From Google

Prerna Sinha

8 years ago

Google has again come up with something cool, last time we told you about Kiddle, a kiddie search engine now it wants to appeal to young inventors and wants to help teach kids how to code. Their new project is called Project Bloks.

So What is this?

Project Bloks is a research collaboration between Google, Paulo Blikstein (Stanford University) and IDEO with the goal of creating an open hardware platform that researchers, developers and designers can use to build physical coding experiences.The Project Bloks system is made up of three core components the “Brain Board”, “Base Boards” and “Pucks”. When connected together they create a set of instructions which can be sent to connected devices, things like toys or tablets, over wifi or Bluetooth.

The Project Bloks system is made up of three core components the “Brain Board”, “Base Boards” and “Pucks”. When connected together they create a set of instructions which can be sent to connected devices, things like toys or tablets, over wifi or Bluetooth.

You can also record instructions from multiple pucks into a single one. As they have no active electric components, they can be made from a variety of inexpensive materials, including something as simple as paper with conductive ink.

These can have different forms, interactivity and can be programmed with different instructions (e.g. turn on/off, move left, jump, play music).

Why is it cool for kids?

To show how designers, developers, and researchers might make use of system, the Project Bloks team worked with IDEO to create a reference device, called the Coding Kit. The kids can control mechanisms for robots, toys, and even tablets and these are as simple as using blocks or legos with some basic computing knowledge. A kid’s creativity knows no bounds and this will just give it wings. Absolutely looking forward to this and for young inventors of tomorrow :).

This video might help you understand it better;

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