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Google Launches 'Project Bloks' Toys To Teach Kids To Code (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google has launched a hardware project dubbed 'Project Bloks' to help teach kids how to code. There are three components to the learning experience: Brain Board, Base Boards, and Pucks. The Brain Board features a processing unit that is based off of Raspberry Pi Zero, which controls and provides power to the rest of the connected components. It does also interact with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices. The Base Boards are connective units that let users design instruction flows. Finally, the Pucks are the components you interact with. They're shaped with switches, arrows, buttons, dials and more, and can be programmed to turn things on or off, move avatars, play music, and more. What's neat is you can record instructions from multiple pucks into a single one. Some of them can be made with simple, inexpensive materials like paper with conductive ink. You can watch the official introduction video on YouTube. Google did release a subsequent video about the project called "Developing on Project Bloks."
Sheesh, just leave it alone. Seems like they are trying to teach "coding" a younger and younger age. The interested ones will figure it out on their own.
Google Launches 'Project Bloks' Toys To Teach Kids To Code
Good job they're not trying to teach kids to spell.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Not this fucking shit again........
Everyone must learn to code or you'll starve to death in the new economy!!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Endlessly reinventing the same tired old wheel.
We have a name for this. It's called Visual Programming, and it sucks. Really, it does. Even better, this physical version of the concept retains all the suck of the original, then adds extra suck, when you run out of the control bloks you need.
This whole concept bizarrely teaches physical limitations in the one realm where physical limitations do not apply: programming[1]. Your programs are limited by the number and type of "lines of code" that you have in the bucket. *boggle* Project Bloks is likely to drive a new generation of coders to develop a level of terseness that would make a Perl devotee weep. Is that really what you want?
I'm sure this is entertaining for about 5 minutes. After that, even the five year olds shown in the video will lose interest. Thankfully, there will be no new generation of Perl mavens with a bucket full of regexes.
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[1] In this house, young lady, we obey the.... yeah yeah, put your hand down, you in the back. You know what I meant.
I think this is just another simplistic "solution" to a problem not quite understood. We have seen similar projects in the past - in the 70es it was "University for All"; everybody should be pushed through some sort of higher education, it didn't really matter which or whether it actually gave useful skills. Not that education isn't a good thing, but as it turned out, having a major in creative arts wasn't always what the economy needed. And, it is not a bad thing as such if everybody knows how to write code - at least you may then have a basis for understanding what computers can (and not least: cannot) do, but the real problems for the economy are not as simple as "not enough coders". And the problems with the economy are not the most important in society either; I would say inequality is a far more important problem to solve. Inequality lies behind most of the unrest in the world, just as it always has.