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Sony has partnered with Japanese educational material manufacturer Artec Co. to produce a set of educational building blocks.
KOOV, a robot programming kit that uses building blocks, was released in Japan last February by Japanese electronics company Sony. Artec Co. manufactures the blocks, while Sony handles software production, technology, and marketing.
The seven-colored set can be customized in two ways. First, the blocks’ colors can be changed by stacking them on top of each other. Second, the blocks’ movement can be programmed by assembling the blocks into a chosen form and coding their motion using a desktop application. To make it user-friendly, the app relies on an “if-then-else” programming language, which allows users to set conditions and executes a program based on whether the conditions are met or not.
The KOOV set is part of Sony Global Education’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) 101 independent study curriculum. STEM 101 is divided into the three categories of “think,” “make,” and “feel,” which refer to math, robots, and science, respectively. Although the KOOV set falls under the “make” category, its educational value goes beyond assembling pieces together.
Through the invention of the KOOV set, Sony promotes the concept of “tinkering”, which is the incorporation of playing into learning. Users either play around with the shape, color, and motion of the blocks to explore possible outcomes or experiment until a desired result is achieved. In addition, the KOOV set stimulates individuality and creativity among users by allowing them to assemble the blocks into a figure of their choice, match the pieces to produce a color scheme, or program the parts to move in a specific way.