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Sony launches a $250 version of its Koov robot coding kit
Sony has launched a smaller, more affordable version of Koov, its candy-colored coding toy for kids. A Koov kit contains blocks, motors and sensors kids can put together to create robots and small machines they can program. It can make classes a lot more fun and ignite kids' interest in science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) subjects. But it also costs $520 a set, which could be too much for schools with little funding or teachers who pay for classroom supplies out of pocket. The new Koov Trial Kit only costs $250.
Sony's STEM-focused coding toy is ready for classrooms
The first product from Sony's Global Education division, a candy-colored robot-building toy called Koov, is now ready for all of us to order. The toy, which is Sony's attempt to topple Lego Mindstorms' dominance in the STEM toy market, comprises of blocks that you can put together with motors and sensors. Once you've constructed something, you can then head over to the iOS, Windows or OS X app to program its behavior.
Sony's Koov is a candy-colored coding course for kids
STEM skills are in high demand right now, making toys that teach science and engineering popular with parents hoping to give their kids a leg up in the job market. Products like Hasbro's new robot that teaches coding have joined kits like Lego Mindstorms on store shelves. Now Sony is making its own plunge into STEM education using the Koov robotics kit, with decades of design experience being put to work in the hopes of training the next generation of engineers.
Sony taps crowdfunding to deliver its kid-friendly coding kit
Sony's answer to Lego Mindstorms is a robot-building kit called Koov. It's the first product from Sony's Global Education division, and it's meant to help kids learn to code while they have fun building robots. The company has put the design kit on Indiegogo to gather some $100,000 in crowd-sourced funding while getting valuable feedback on the kits, which include more than 30 hours of kid-friendly coding instruction and multi-colored blocks with sensors and actuators. The project currently sits at almost $5,000 in funding; kits are set to ship out to backers in November.
Koov is Sony's answer to Lego Mindstorms
Governments and educators around the world want to teach kids coding at an early age, so many corporations are eager to help -- for a price. The latest company jumping into the trend is Sony, which just launched Koov "digital native blocks." It's the first product for Sony's new Global Education division and a big part of its STEM101 (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) endeavor. Sony describes Koov as a "robot building educational kit made up of [translucent] blocks and a microcontroller," much like Lego's Mindstorm and WeDo 2.0 kits.
