from Hacker News

Ask HN: Can a teddy bear teach kids to code?

by afriday11 on 4/21/14, 11:33 PM with 3 comments

DiDi is an iPad powered teddy bear for kids 3+

Our development is currently focused on basic knowledge and skills that kids need to learn for elementary school, but I've been thinking that maybe he could also teach kids the basics of coding.

Any thoughts on how we could make our toy more little hacker friendly? I have some concepts and would like to discuss them with the HN community.

Here is the kickstarter page about our Teddy Bear, DIDI: http://kck.st/1lw2LCk

  • by LarryMade2 on 4/23/14, 3:08 PM

    How about some icon based language with if then conditionals, loops, a couple variables and a random number generator. the icons could be sounds (music notes?), pictures, buttons, phrases, etc. Drag the icons onto a strip which is the program listing.

  • by fotoflo on 4/24/14, 10:52 PM

    It would probably need a good way to get input: a usb keyboard or something? But if it's an iPad teddy bear, maybe you're biting off more then you can chew -- teach them to read before they can code?

  • by jareers on 4/23/14, 3:29 PM

    This sounds like a pretty neat idea. You should check this out: http://csunplugged.org/