From Fastcompany

Teaching Children How To Code, Without Screens
  How a wooden toy called Cubetto may help foster the next 
generation of digital groundbreakers.
  Meg Carter 03.08.16 6:00 AM
  It's generally agreed upon that the ability to code is going to 
be an invaluable job skill for upcoming generations.  So how do 
you teach preliterate children aged three to seven how to program 
without increasing their screen time? The answer is a wooden play 
kit called Cubetto.
  Designed to unlock young children's creativity using a wooden 
robot, a programming board, and instruction blocks, Cubetto's 
groundbreaking system officially launches today.
  The idea is ingenious.  Instruction blocks are one of four 
colours, each representing a different programming command: red 
to move forward, blue to turn left, yellow to turn right, and 
green is the function key.  Inside the board is an 
Arduino-compatible circuit that can read the position of the 
block and transmit directions to a circuit inside Cubetto.
  Children place the instruction blocks onto the board in a set 
order to determine how Cubetto, the robot, moves.  Three reds in 
a row make the robot turn in a circle-left, left, then left 
again.  The function key enables children to build up longer 
patterns.  The aim is that skills are mastered gradually.
  The inspiration for developing a tangible programming 
interface, according to Primo Toys cofounders Matteo Loglio and 
Filippo Yacob, came from Loglio's studies toward his master's 
degree in interaction design three years ago.




"The starting point was a challenge to help young children be 
creators not just consumers of technology," Yacob tells 
CoddCreate.  "The response was to digest programming and present 
it back to them in a physical format they could easily 
understand."

Programming is "a new literacy" and should be prioritized as such 
from an early age, he says.  "Being introduced to the environment 
of programming, and the language of algorithms, debugging, and 
functions helps give them the foundations necessary to succeed in 
today's digital age."
  The Cubetto play set is informed by hands-on learning 
principles borrowed from Montessori early-learning theories, and 
MIT's Logo, which was designed by Seymour Papert at MIT in 1960s 
as a way to teach children programming and find their own ways of 
solving problems.  Its design is inspired by traditional wooden 
preschool children's toys.
  "During field research, initially in Switzerland but then in 
schools across 40 countries, it was clear kids from a young age 
are attracted to the challenges and tactile nature of wooden 
puzzles and jigsaws," says Yacob.  "So we set out to make this 
look and feel like other toys they already enjoy-familiar, 
nonthreatening, and instantly relatable."
  The minimalist design is also a way to further foster 
children's imagination.

"Not only are we trying to teach a new language they can be 
creative with, Cubetto is designed to be a storytelling tool," he 
adds.  "The robot character with a smiling face is intentionally 
left open as an 'it' for them to interpret as they choose, 
personalize as a character, and create their own stories around."
  A series of play mats have been designed to prompt children to 
play with their robots in different imaginary landscapes-outer 
space, for example, or beneath the sea.

From the outset of Cubetto's development, the team wanted their 
design to be intuitive and easily understood by any child, 
irrespective of their language.  Subsequently, the team worked to 
make it even more inclusive through the specific shapes of its 
different components, tactile cues, and two-tone recognition 
pattern sounds that enable visually impaired children to learn to 
program, too.
  Conceived and designed by Primo Toys with initial development 
funding through Kickstarter and backers including Randi 
Zuckerberg and Arduino cofounder Massimo Banzi, Cubetto was 
codeveloped for market with engineering and design firm PCH 
International.
  Primo now plans to develop a range of toys designed to inspire 
children to explore the digital world around them.


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