Kids learning to code is one of the big themes of 2014 around the world, but particularly so here in the UK, where even primary-school children will be learning computer programming skills as part of the educational curriculum form September.
Here’s something interesting on that score. It’s a project called Craft Computer Club which is taking a slightly different approach: a paper computer for kids. Its creator, Dan Bridge, is trying to raise £35,000 on crowdfunding site Kickstarter to get it off the ground.
“The Craft Computer is a paper model of a computer children can make using everyday materials like card, scissors, glue, string,” explains his Kickstarter page:
“Through building it and other models they’re introduced to the fundamental principles behind computing such as the important parts inside and what they do, what files are, binary numbers, how pixels create images, how the Internet works and ultimately algorithms and programming. And we do it together, in fun, simple, bite sized pieces.”
Bridge’s project is about more than the Craft Computer though. People can pledge money to get the Craft Computer book, with a guide to computers and programming for children “from controlling traffic lights and supermarkets to Raspberry Pi, the Internet of Things, how games like Angry Birds work and of course safety and security issues”.
Tied in with that will be an online community – pledgers get a year’s membership – with guides, video tutorials and other information on topics including different coding languages (Scratch, Kodu, Python and HTML5) as well as devices.
You can pledge £5 to simply support the project, or £15 to get the e-book edition of the book plus 12 months’ membership of the community. But this being Kickstarter, there are higher levels: £28 is the ‘Sponsor a School’ option where you get the e-book and year’s membership for you and your child’s school, plus a licence for the latter to print “unlimited activity sheets” for pupils.
£250 or more gets a ‘School Pack’ including 10 copies of the book, £750 gets this plus a visit from Bridge to the school, and the top-tier £5,000 option gets a ‘Sponsor Workshop’:
“I’ll run the Craft Computer workshop at your event plus 10 books to a school or group of your choice, create a custom craft computer with your logo, plus your image/logo and biography on our Sponsor page which will be included in the book and on our website. Plus 24 months membership to our exclusive online content and community.”
The project looks really worthwhile, but also really fun – we’ve pledged already, and we hope Bridge makes his target in the 24 days left until its deadline. Want to join us? You can read more and pledge here.