Play-i: A robot that teaches children programming

Kids can use a simple programming language to play interactive games with Play-i's two robots to get a rudimentary knowledge of programming. Article | Michelle Goodman2011 years, Vikas Gupta the first time in his life as a father. He began to think about how old his daughter could start learning computer programming. Through observation and research, Gupta found that if children had an interactive physical toy, they could understand the concept of programming when they were 5〜6 years old. He also found that few toys were taught to teach children programming skills in the US market, which means that in the past 20 years, computer science education in the United States has been stagnant, or even regressive. Gupta, who sold his electric-business start-up Jambool to Google for 70 million dollars in 2010, said: "These studies make me want to try to solve this problem." So he developed the two interactive robots designed for 5〜12-year-old children, Bo and Yana. Last November Gupta's new company Play-i on its website. In just 30 days, the Silicon Valley company received nearly 11,000 pre-order orders, totaling $1.4 million trillion. Since October 2014, Play-i has been able to distribute products to consumers in 20 countries. In March 2014, Play-i received a 8 million dollar a round of financing, which was invested by Madrona Investment Group from Seattle and the early venture capital of Charles River Ventures (CRV) from Menlo, California. Scott Jacobson, Madrona's managing director, believes that play-i robots are no less attractive to children than rubber fudge: the idea of the product is very appealing to parents-because children love it and are good for children's growth. "Jacobson has now joined Play-i's board and started investing in Madrona, starting with the 2012 seed-wheel financing. According to Gupta, a large portion of the $8 million trillion of funding they received this year was spent on the expansion team, and now Play-i has a 30-person team, including engineers, software developers, mechanical and industrial designers, and they have worked with a Chinese manufacturer. In addition, he revealed that his main job now is to make Bo and Yana the two robots in the fun and functional performance of the best possible. Before starting to make other robotic products, he hopes that the existing two products will bring them a lot of revenue this year. Before the product went public, even though the robots looked rough and many wires were exposed outside the product, they had already tested the product with many children and parents, Gupta said. And then they go into the product according to the test user's opinionMake adjustments, such as giving a unique personality to a robot, and hiding the wheels used for marching. Today, Bo and Yana's main colors consist of bright blue and orange, and a moving led eye. Bo's price is 199 dollars, he "can detect the surrounding objects, successfully out of the maze, and even can play football" into the goal. Yana is priced at 69 dollars and she "can't move on her own, but if she slides down the slide she can sense" that she is moving. These two robots can interact, such as playing Hide-and-seek, and can be controlled via Bluetooth with iOS and Android phones and tablets. Children can use animation, stories, music and other functions, through the scratch and blockly and other simple programming language to guide the behavior of the robot. In addition, consumers can purchase other accessories, such as building blocks, xylophone and hammers. At present, Play-i only sells Bo and Yana on the official website. Before entering the retail stores, Jacobson said, they want to continue their branding efforts through Word-of-mouth and collaboration with the school. Now, many mobile apps and games want to teach children programming skills. But Gupta and his team have taken the approach of hand-operated three-dimensional toys, and they believe their parents will agree. Jacobson, who already has 3 children, says: "I don't want my kids to just stare at a computer or TV screen every day, but want them to do all kinds of activities in the real physical world." "Translation | Roux Cloud