Hackaball
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Kickstarter celebrates STEM with a slate of kid-focused projects
This week, Kickstarter hosted a special STEM event at its headquarters in Brooklyn, showing off a variety of products intended to teach kids programming skills. If the prevailing wisdom is "hook 'em while they're young," that ethos was certainly on display here: The projects were fun and colorful, and one was even meant for children as young as three.
Hackaball, the toy kids can program, rolls out in March
After launching on Kickstarter last year, Hackaball, a programmable toy for kids, is almost ready for prime time. It's already sold out its initial pre-order run, but you'll soon be able to snag another batch for $85. Hackaball is expected to ship in March, the company says. To refresh, Hackaball looks like a fairly typical toy ball, but inside it's got a six-axis motion sensor and multi-color LED lights. Kids can program it to do all sorts of things using that sensor — it can change color when you throw it, or if you're not holding the ball steady enough. The idea is that kids will be able to create all sorts of games and learn the basics of programming.
