Ruslan Kreymer

02 SCOPE

Understanding the problem

In order to answer important questions such as what is the goal of the educational platform and how it might work I need to understand the users. We have parents and their children and we need to find a match for both groups.

The platform should be attractive for kids but not only. Parents should understand the value of it and ready to pay. So, in our case, it’s a complex user model and we should build a value proposition that will work for all parties. Let’s have a deeper look into each of the roles.

03 USER

Kids

Luckily, we all were children and we remember how it is to be a kid. How fun it is but also hard sometimes. Being a parent I also understand that from the first days of life babies start learning and it continues for years. In other words, kids are made to learn and absorb information around. And if the process is fun it’s more effective. It’s been proved that the fun and enjoyable process helps people to perceive education materials better.¹

I believe that every kid has an innate ability to achieve high goals in a certain area. It might be sport, chess, cooking, language, music, social skills, math, sport. Some kids are geniuses and can even develop multiple areas.

Focusing on modern kids of 8-14 years old we can highlight the following aspects of their behavior and abilities:

Reading and writing skills.
Mobile-oriented and tech-savvy.
Eager to learn.
Logical and critical thinking.
Addicted by social networks and video games.
Content consumers.
School and extra activities load.

As a general note I can say that children of 8 years might dramatically differ from the kids of 14 years old and as a recommendation here I would break down this initial group into 2 smaller ones:

Kids / 8 - 12, elementary school.
Teenagers / 12 - 14, further education.

In the following assignment, I would focus more on the younger group because I believe that this group represents elementary school (by Dutch standards) and it’s easier to narrow down their needs. However, I believe that solution might be also interesting for kids of age 12 -14 but they can be much more advanced and even learn programming through a real coding environment (although robotics is still a very interesting area).

04 USER

Parents

All parents are different but I think the majority of them want their kids to develop and spend their time with value. Parents should support kids and even immerse together in the activities and learn new things through the game.

Considering 8-14 years children focus we will deal with parents of middle age group, 35 - 50 years. The majority of parents have the following aspects of their behavior and abilities:

Limited time due to work and other responsibilities.
Mobile and desktop-friendly.
Open to help kids in order to find what they like to do and where to develop.

05 PROBLEM

Problem exploration

In order to understand the problems that parents and kids experience I’ve checked the research online. Because of time constraints, I did not focus on the Dutch market but checked multiple research articles from various developed countries. In the real case, we should analyze the market where we launch the product. However, I believe that the parenting and learning process in developed countries shares the majorities of aspects and issues.

One of the problems that the majority of parents experience is ‘Screen time’. Fully 71% of parents of a child under the age of 12 say they are at least somewhat concerned their child might ever spend too much time in front of screens, including 31% who are very concerned about this.²

I believe that these issues are so concerning for parents because kids spend time with smartphones and other devices consuming content and not creating. Indeed, consuming requires less effort from children and triggers activity in different parts of the brain rather than when they create content or discover.

Indeed, parents are aware of the many benefits of coding or programming for kids. Among other benefits, kids learn computational thinking, problem-solving, and prepares them for skills needed in a world that is increasingly dependent on technology ran by computer programs behind the scenes.³

Another issue is that programming often perceived as a complex thing by parents and children as well. In fact, it’s not. We are humans and we are made to think logically. We have some algorithms that we use every day in our life. Coding allows us to pass these algorithms to the machines and execute them. Our goal is to make this operation as easy and user-friendly as possible. We should position the product on the market, not as a platform for geeks and genius kids but for everyone.

Answering one of the questions of the assignment, the goal of the parents is to help their children develop and support them with their interests and activities. Kids need appreciation and their effort should be always visible and seen to parents. In my opinion, the platform should support this connection.

06 LEARNING

Learning process

“I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer. Should learn a computer language, because it teaches you how to think.” - Steve Jobs

As Steve Jobs said everyone should learn how to program. But how? Another aspect that I had to dive into is the learning process. In order for us to make a successful product, we need to understand this process very well.

According to the research, ’‘learning via technology, it is repeatedly asserted, is ‘fun’, exciting and motivating for young people in a way that more traditional methods are not”. Yet, the use of technology in education is often clinical, unimaginative, and far from empowering for students. Making is well-positioned to make learning less of a burden for the child, and more of a fun experience.⁴

Ok, research tells us that successful learning should be fun. But what do children perceive as fun? According to the research kids like objects and activities the most.⁴

It fits very well in the concept of learning programming skills along with objects (in our case a robot). It’s similar to chemistry lessons when children experience how 2 substances mix and react. Emotions that happen in parallel with that ‘fix’ the knowledge for many years n long brains. We should make the same for programming.

Children also noted that ‘Making’ and ‘Science’ are the most liked topics during the learning process. A good part of the kids noted that they liked interacting with electronics which is also interesting.

These findings illustrate that there is a lot of potential in making not only a programming education platform but also a physical object that would showcase work as a result of the code. Programming can be hard but it can be also fun. In my opinion, learning programming will be developing further and soon every school will have a coding course for kids. It will be the same subject as math.

Summarising these findings from the research we can conclude that parents want their kids to learn to program and spend their time with value. Kids are very engaged to interact with physical objects and eager to create and deal with science. This gives us a good basis for value proposition but firstly let’s see what’s already in the market.

07 BENCHMARKING

What others do

In order for our product to succeed, we must know what’s already in the market. This is a crucial part of the initial phases of product development. There are plenty of apps and websites that teach programming for kids. Due to time constraints, I did not go deep into the analysis but can highlight that LEGO Stem and LEGO Mindstorms are very strong competitors and provide a great way for kids to learn programming along with the physical models.

Considering what LEGO offers I would recommend positioning our solution a bit differently and consider an alternative approach and 'look and feel' of a robot.

Indeed, I believe that a robot will play a key role in positioning the product. We can build a programming interface for iPad or web but children should see and experience the outcome of their effort in the real world on a physical model. Let’s see what we can do with the robot.

08 ROBOT

Robot as a part of the platform

The complexity of the robot is inside and in order for kids to understand that we need to make the shape as simple as possible. They will make the robot complex and the robot will become more and more complex as kids will evolve programming skills. The robot is a reflection of the effort and it’s the same as a software program. You start with a blank and it’s absolute freedom.

From another hand, parents can immediately see what the child achieved by looking at what the robot can do. And I think that child will be happy to share what the robot can do. The research also showed that kids are eager to share both positive and negative experiences after the activity.⁴ So, I believe that the social aspect is also important in our platform.

The robot might have various sensors and actions that will make the outcome of the programming variations countless. Indeed, it might support different interests of the child such as music or be a companion for regular games such as cars or dolls or even talking.

The more sensors and actions the robot will support the better because it will give more use cases. Of course, there will be some technical constraints and cost-related limitations, however, I believe it’s possible to build a very functional robot with the price of a low-end smartphone. Sensors are listed below.⁵

Sensors

Light
Sound
Temperature
Contact
Proximity
Distance
Pressure
Tilt
Navigation (GPS)
Acceleration
Gyroscope

Actions

Making light, flashing
Making sound
Moving around
Vibrating
Camera capturing
Connecting (wired / wireless)
Charging

In this design case, I did not explore cost efficiency and further develop a concept of the robot.

06 CONCEPT

Conceptual robot design

Based on the initial design I’ve made a list of functions that should support the design of the robot.

Simplicity. Should look simple not making false expression of a ‘complex thing’.
Responsiveness. React to the environment and to the commands.
Form-factor. So small that can be carried to the school and even fit in the pocket.
Modularity. Functions might be extended with additional sensors.
Resistance. The robot should be resistant enough to falls.
Uniqueness. The robot should look unique across the market.

It’s important to give a name to the robot, make it him or her. I would leave kids the opportunity to give the robot any name but from the initial point, kids should have a feeling that it's an alive object. It should help kids to built relations and attach to the new toy.

The main idea behind the physical shape of the robot is simplicity. I wanted to show kids that they can do the complexity using imagination and creativity. The robot has multiple built-in sensors such as a gyroscope but it can also move⁶, vibrate, turn on the light, makes sounds, and listen. It can also use a built-in camera. It should have Bluetooth in order to connect to smartphones and other devices. The robot can be disassembled for sensors upgrade.

The robot can talk and interact with kids reminding them about himself. Instead of making the focus on the programming environment in our platform and using existing devices to engage kids, it will be great to use the robot itself. For example, one of the ways to do so is to make sound and use a flashlight proposing some scenario for programming. Current technologies should allow us to make the robot not only responsive to the commands but also smart enough to interact with kids.

I think it will be great to include the ‘Connectivity’ function similar to what Tamagotchi designers made.⁷ That would allow interacting with other robots from this series. This opens additional functions such as program exchange and making robots friends (Github for kids). Indeed, the form factor of the robots easily allows to take them to school, vacation, or any other places making it one of their favorite toys.

07 PROGRAMMING

Programming environment

For entry-level knowledge, we would need to support block-based programming. It’s been proved that this approach works well and some elementary schools already teach kids programming using this method.⁸ However, the environment should support more complex scenarios and text-based programming. I can imagine the following scenarios for programming for the robot:

Moving by following a specific path.
Making alarm out of the robot.
Programming flash light.
Making specific sounds.
Changing the colour of the light.
Programming display.
Making camera pictures using different commands (time based, etc).
etc.

The environment should be available across popular mobile platforms and the web. The programs are synced to the robot through Bluetooth or USB port. Kids can interact with the robot using the interface in the mobile device but also independently (locally). For that scenario, it will be great to use the voice interface but it can be a bit complex. Otherwise, I would consider simple controls right on the robot that would allow to select specific program by number and execute it.