Project Bloks

Product Innovation

Project Bloks is a project we initiated in Creative Lab. The objective was to make coding more accessible for kids.

Our solution was to help create more experiences that teach coding to kids.

To do this, we developed an open hardware platform that developers, designers, and researchers could use to build the next generation of tangible programming experiences for kids.

What are tangible programming experiences? And why focus on them?

Well, kids naturally learn by using their hands – playing, building stuff, doing things together. So when it comes to teaching them how to code (something normally taught with computers and lines of boring numbers) it makes sense to do it by making code physical – so they can pull it, push it, twist it and turn it. That is tangible programming.

It's a great approach. However, when it comes to making tangible programming products for kids, developers were having to start from scratch every time. That meant they were wasting time and money, both of which could be spent on innovating.

So we set out to create a flexible, open platform that any developer could use for free to make their toy.

The platform is made of three main components: a Brain Board, Base Boards, and Pucks. Together they can control things like toys, IoT devices, or applications on a computer/tablet.

The boards can be covered with any material or form you like, and can be arranged in different ways to create different experiences.

And pucks are easy to make – for example by cutting paper and drawing a capacitive signature with conductive ink. This enables an infinite number of commands to be easily made quickly, by anyone.