Learning to code just got even more affordable: instead of spending $129 on a toy robot (which you still need a device to use), I download Scratch or one of many other free learning oriented coding tools.
Slightly OT: Do people like learning/teaching with scratch? To me it looks like they identified using the keyboard as the hard part of programming and removed that obstacle. It makes programs very tall and skinny so I find them harder to understand.
The kids with parents who buy them the nice robots learn less and lose out in the long run. A used ThinkPad(well under $100) and an active Internet connection is all anyone needs get started.
I had internet access since I was about 10, used the internet constantly though my teenage years, and did great in math and science in school (winning contests and the like). I was also interested in computing and thought it would be cool to know how to code. I even tried to follow some tutorials to learn, but I guess they didn’t explain the tooling so I never managed to run my code. I was missing some tiny experience of running a compiler that would change coding from a thing I’d read about to a thing I’d actually do. I didn’t actually learn to code until I took a computer science class in college. I took it up quickly, and have since had a very good career as a software engineer.
I had the hardware, the aptitude, the interest, and the free time, but it just didn’t happen until I was in the right environment to give me a bit of initial hand-holding. I guess my point is, don’t just throw your kid in front of a computer and assume they will learn to code. They might end up writing fanfiction, playing an MMO, or trolling on 4chan instead.
As other commenters have pointed out, the kids (and adults) in this picture may simply not have the technical skills to even get started.
As a child, I went to the library, got a book on programming and was dying to learn how to do it but didn't manage to compile a single program for years.
A programming app, or a programming robot, or some other tailor made solution may well be the right solution for some of these kids.
In Central Europe it’s relatively common to have schools and university organizing Scratch workshops for kids. Local hackerspaces or Linux user groups help organize that kind of event all the time. There are a lot of small initiatives like this if you look around for workshops targeting kids.
I can tell you. I first used Logo Writer when I was in 2nd grade (in the 80s) and I thought it was cool. But, the "usefulness" of computers never hit me until the following year when a teacher brought in the Turtle robot and I made my logo writer "program" write to actual paper. Everything fell into place from there. I went to the library and got books to learn BASIC. I went to computer "camps" in the summer at the local university. Etc. I've been a professional programmer now for 15 years. Taking programs from the screen to hardware is what got me really excited.
As a computing teacher, for many kids, the difference is huge. Doesn't have to be a robot - the bbc micro:bit is similarly useful in taking computing into the real world. Kids are definitely more motivated by the tangible.
Though recently I've been exploring Minecraft Education Edition, and am wondering if that has similar benefits, even though it's not in the real world; is Minecraft 'real' enough?
Not very interesting. It can wander around some with very minimal feedback. It can't communicate, it can't sense many parts of its environment, since its only ability to act is really its two wheels it can't interact outside of wiggling and some beeps and boops.
If you’re looking for a cheap platform for learning to code I’d recommend looking into the BBC micro:bit.
As a person whose job it is to help teachers teach kids computer science, it’s a really versatile tool. We’ve taught kids from year 3 with MakeCode all the way to the end of high school with micro python using the micro:bit.
The teachers themselves (who often have less experience than the kids) even really get into it!
One cat get lots of wheels, cheap motors, ultrasonic sensors and fake Arduinos for 129$. Though mummy with solder iron doesn’t look look that sexy as in current photo.
Edit: I was thinking about this problem recently. There is LEGO camp with their educational robots. Sets with power functions are great for the start.
Then there are these educational toys like in the article. And I don’t believe in this at all. They will get boring soon and there is no way for upgrades.
There are educational microcomputers like micro:bit. I think they are great if they were used in schools, but that part of education is parental topic in most countries.
And there is dyi corner, I have electronics lab at home. I built a simple Arduino based vehicle with ultrasonic sensor that turned left if encountered obstacle 50 cm away. It was most popular toy for weeks! Despite duct tape and lack of aesthetics.
This is the gateway, not the destination. It's a low-cost piece of kit that removes a potential barrier to entry.
I can't tell most of my mates to build a robot for their kid to learn with. I can't support one I built myself. I CAN tell them to pick one of these up to help get their little monsters on their way to happily building SkyNet.
A lot of parents aren't going to DIY a robot for their kids. They don't have the skillset and aren't going to learn it for something their kid might not even enjoy dealing with.
They might recognize the Root rt0 as the spiritual successor to the Roamer and Turtle they grew up with in school though, if they were in the UK at least.
I enjoyed using a Turtle, which is basically an ancient massive tethered version of this, with the Logo programming language.
You can slap that Not-Lego plate on and grab a some Lego Technics, and suddenly you've fitted a rocket launcher and you're programming a tank.
They can then graduate to Lego Mindstorms or an Arduino or micro:bit or some Pi robotics kit afterwards.
And the Root rt0 will likely keep a good chunk of its value on resale.
The idea is to buy it and have your kids love it and outgrow it. It's the push that makes them move, if you will.
Whoever decided to call it a "Brick Top" presumably didn't watch Guy Ritchie's masterpiece Snatch. Probably not something you want the kids Googling as understandably, the top results are Alan Ford's character.
Unfortunately I am yet to see evidence of these new "coding robots" actually providing educational benefit, they seem to be more of a distraction from the fundamentals of maths and science, and an even greater burden on an already stretched education system budget.
Perhaps children aged 6 should be focused on reading and writing rather than worrying about Moravec's paradox on a $200 bleeping pile of plastic.
I found its spiritual predecessors, the Turtle and the Roamer, and the programming language LOGO, to be helpful in learning maths and programming at an early age. I then moved to BASIC. Then Pascal, then Delphi.
YMMV, but ask geeks who grew up in the UK during the late eighties and early nineties and see what their opinion is.
Maybe it's less important now that things like Minecraft are so much more immersive than the tools we had "back in the day", but I wouldn't discount it so easily.
I don’t know that we’ve ever come up with anything better than the Lego mindstorms kits. Lego is an incredible way of teaching people basic physics and engineering concepts, and mindstorms brings programming into the mix. With other programming languages (RobotC and NXJ were used in my learning), it’s a great way of teaching basic programming all the way up to things like sensor fusion.
In addition to hacking via the DIN port in Roombas, iRobot did some iRobot Create models, which were strictly educational robots. Creates were mostly Roomba hardware without dirty vacuum cleaner parts, and with some additional features. They also did an optional microcontroller at one point, which plugged into the Create, to supplement the built-in.
This round Root with the pen at first glance looks like an old Logo turtle robot, but has more features. And the optional Lego support is interesting.
(Lego has long had its own Lego Mindstorms microcontroller product series. And starting before that, MIT and some other universities used Legos in introductory robotics courses.)
It's nice to see iRobot still interested in education, and the Root looks promising. One encouraging sign would be if a child could design and build their own effectors and sensors, such as a gripper, out of Lego, and interface them pretty easily with the Root (preferably not only with the pen up/down mechanics).
I teach coding to high schoolers, and often wonder the same thing. One reason is it helps with problem solving skills - to code, you need to first be able to decompose problems, and structure your thinking. So in that sense, it's a proxy rather than a necessary outcome in itself; kind of like maths (very few people need the level of maths taught in schools), but more modern and sexier. What I've been wondering is, with the likes of Siri and Google Now being able to be 'programmed' with natural language, how much longer we will need to code, compared to talking to a computer/AI to achieve the required outcome.
I think the most important skills/attitude an educator can impart is 'fearlessness', an essential trait when it comes to dealing with the many errors posed by computers and the complexity of the modern world.
Do I have to think everyone needs to learn to code in order to want to teach _more_ people to code or to want to advance the state of the art in coding pedagogy?
I don't think EVERYONE needs these skills. Most people will never need them. But:
- I think getting underprivileged kids excited about coding/making games/robots/etc may be an excellent way to provide more kids with a good future.
- I _really_ wish more legislators had backgrounds in software. I think concepts like technical debt, KISS, code reuse, etc as well as the general method of translating business requirements to code are more applicable to that domain than generally appreciated.
But as far as I can see the reasoning is the following:
Because of competition in the global economy. There is a huge demand for skilled software engineers in the world, and that’s expected to continue to grow in the future. If you want to be able to compete with other countries then you want to have trained workers. Here the bet is that having an increase in software engineers would result in higher productivity, and generate value over time.
It’s also an easy sell to parents and people in general given that you can make really good money by writing software without killing yourself to the job.
Because having workers able to achieve a better than middle class outcome is a threat to the ruling class therefore we must teach a new generation so they can fight over the scraps as we import H1B slaves.
Code is everywhere in our world. It governs our behaviors, our desires, our politics. Everyone needs to learn to code for the same reason that everyone needs to learn to cook — code is such a major component of your life that you’d be well served to understand it as well as you can. Just like cooking can help you build good health patterns, coding can help you build good digital lifestyle patterns.
I'm going to be downvoted if I don't preface this statement: CompSci, know quite a few languages well enough. Good at it.
I sure as heck hope that when my kids are career age - they're doing something a bit higher up the stack than programming. Even if it's meta-programming. Programming is a convoluted way of interacting with business logic.
Why teach kids how to do anything? Why teach them math, swimming, writing, eating healthy, etc? You can find people who didn’t learn any of this stuff until they were 27 and “turned out fine.”
I completely agree here, it seems like they are just playing into education's concept of code=STEM job, or maybe it's a new Roomba recruitment drive...
