A local company is continuing its quest to teach children code through their upcoming hybrid robot and established online game.
Pakuranga-based Kai’s Education was founded with the aim of merging the physical and virtual worlds to become an ‘interactive learning playground’ with the goal to ‘nurture an interest for coding in children’, an aim that is the focus of their robot KaiBot and web-based game Kainundrum.
“Teaching kids to code opens up a lot of avenues for them,” Kai’s Education CEO Bruce Jackson says. “I’ve always had a passion for it.”
The KaiBot is a coding robot that “creates a rich and engaging way to teach and learn coding”.
It is aimed at parents and teachers, combines physical and virtual activity and is set to be released in April of next year.
The physical comes in the form of the robot and its deck of playing cards and lay-out tiles that comes with it.
The virtual is in the form of the free multiplayer game, Kainundrum.
Kainundrum is free-to-play and involves battling robots – from solving puzzles to completing weekly challenges. The KaiBot, when released, will be able to connect virtually to Kainundrum and participate.
“You can build your own game and code your robot,” Kai’s education manager Ronel Schodt says, “or join in the online adventure with virtual robots. We would love to see parents join in and play with their kids.”
The KaiBot, Schodt says, is all about mazes, puzzles, escape rooms and hide and seek games.
“We want to give every kid in New Zealand and the rest of the world the chance to learn how to code,” Schodt says. “It’s super cool and very engaging for kids.”
For more information on the KaiBot, visit https://kaisclan.ai/main-kaibot-page/