KIBO Appeals to Kids' Imagination

There are an increasing number of toys for helping kids learn by programming and building robots. Now Boston Device Development and a startup called KinderLab Robotics have entered the fray with a Kickstarter campaign to get kids engaged in robotic programming younger than ever.

The campaign is for a robotic building kit called KIBO, the invention of Tufts University Professor Marina Bers. The toy provides a series of blocks that can be turned into robots and teaches children programming fundamentals through physical play, Bers said during an interview with Design News.

Boston Device Development is providing the mechanical design and product packaging for KIBO, as well as developing the supply chain development. Educational toy startup KinderLab Robotics will market and sell KIBO.

KIBO is aimed at children four to seven years of age, with a goal of instilling in children at as young an age as possible an interest and affinity for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields but with a varied way of teaching that includes the different ways that children's minds work.

Bers told us:

Bers said she was inspired to design the toy from her own experience trying and failing to find technology that could help her own children learn. "When I started this work in 2008, I had three young children and I did not find any technologies out there that could help them learn to code and gain problem-solving skills in an age-appropriate way," she told us.

The kit is aimed at appealing not only to children who are naturally technically minded, but also to those that have minds more in line with creative arts, cultural interests, or physical activity, Bers said.

KIBO lets kids use their imaginations to make almost anything -- a character from a story, a carousel, a dancer, a helicopter, etc. A child can create a sequence of instructions -- or a program for a robot -- using the wooden KIBO blocks, which have written on them the activity they can perform. Using this method, kids can design a robot and decorate it with art materials, and scan the blocks with the KIBO body to tell the robot what to do, Bers said. A simple power button turns the robot on to perform its appointed role.