Google’s Latest Hardware Project Teaches Kids To Code

A new build-it-yourself hardware project from internet giant Google could be among the best platforms for teaching children how to code. With their Project Blocks, Google aims to use something it calls ‘tangible programming’ to teach the next generation how to code. The research project will create an open hardware platform that developers, designers and researchers can use to provide kids with a fun and accessible introduction to the principles of coding. Targeted at young children over the age of five, the system aims to appeal to children to learn through hands-on play in the same way that they might with Lego or building blocks. One of the project’s collaborators, Paulo Blikstein from Stanford University said: “One of the big things about teaching kids how to programme is that they can express ideas that they would not be able to express otherwise. “Young kids they learn by being social by being collaborative by playing with things by exploring with their hands. Taking what’s natural to them and adding a new skill such as computing and programming, I think we’ll have the best of both worlds.”