Codie is a new robotic toy which teaches children the principles of computer coding via a companion iOS app. Codie comes with a unique visual programming language, which organizes the code of robotics into blocks.
By arranging these blocks together children can create real programs, which are then executed by the toy robot. While playing with Codie, children get to learn about how computers think and get to know the fundamental programming principles in a fun and playful way.
Codie is currently fundraising via an Indigogo page, and there’s a few days left to get on board. It’s already made its target, so expect these to be available to purchase normally later this year.
According to the press release: “Children can control the Codie robot with a touch-screen app featuring a custom, visual coding language. That intuitive language organizes robotics code into action blocks. By arranging the action blocks on the app interface, children create programs without using a keyboard. This enables them to start building their first programs in minutes.
After mastering the basics, the Codie app introduces more advanced programming concepts like loops and subroutines at appropriate times. By progressing alongside each child, Codie continues to engage its 8-to-12-year-old target age group, while being challenging to a wider audience, too.”
The novelty of the Codie programming language lies in its layered structure. The application gradually introduces different programming concepts, and as kids get to know these more and more complex structures, so do they unlock more possibilities within Codie. Codie grows with the children as they will have new features to explore for a long time.
It’s definitely an interesting project, and I hope I can get my hands on a Codie in the future to tell you more about it.
If you do get one, let me know what you think about it. You can get more information on the Codie Indigogo page.
In the meantime, you can always check out Sphero!
