Programming study toy for kids

Programming class becomes the compulsory subject in elementary schools in Japan from 2020. This may help the programming study of children.

Sony Global Education and Artec released building toy "KOOV" for the programming learning for children. It is comprised of colorful blocks, electronic parts and application, and children put them together and can make various moving toys. The recipe that showed how to make 22 kinds of toys is included in this set. Vehicles such as s locomotive and a fire engine, creatures such as a crab and a crocodile, musical instruments such as a violin and a guitar, children can learn even the structure of motors, LED, and sensors while playing. In the application, children can learn basics of the programming by visual programming tool. Of course it supports Japanese, even if children do not understand English words, they can study using it. Operating environments of the application are Windows 7(64bit), MacOS 10.9, and iOS 9(iPad).

Packages of KOOV are three kinds, "KOOV starter kit" which has 172 blocks and 16 electronic parts is 39,830yen(in tax), "KOOV expansion parts set" which has 130 blocks and 8 electronic parts is 23,630yen(in tax), and "KOOV advance kit" which has 302 blocks and 4 electronic parts is 53,870yen(in tax).

Stuffed robot which watches families

The appearance of robots is important. In particular, when they are used by children and elderly people, the cute appearance rouses their attachment. NTT DoCoMo, IWAYA, Vitec and MOOREdoll released the communication robot with the appearance such as the stuffed toy "Cocokuma".

The target users are people who live apart from their family. Cocokuma holds buttons in both hands one by one and when users push the button of the left hand of the stuffed toy and talk to this, they can send a voice message to the smartphone of the family living apart. In addition, users can hear the voice message that families sent from smartphone application by pushing the button in the right hand of this.

Furthermore, this has a sensor and speaks the topic of weather and season when users get closer to this. Families of users can confirm the safety of users by checking the use situation of this through smartphone application. The size is 210mm x 200mm x 280mm and weight is about 760g. The price is 37,584yen(in tax) and The service fee is 1,980yen/month.