Primo teaches programming to 4-year-olds using wooden blocks

Primo is a wooden play set designed to teach young children the basic principles of computer programming.

The physical approach to coding uses shapes, colours and spatial awareness to teach computer programming logic to children aged between four and seven in a tactile way. It's currently seeking funding on Kickstarter and has already smashed its target of £35,000 with 10 days to go.

The Primo kit is comprised of a friendly robot called Cubetto, a board which provides a physical programming interface, and a set of brightly coloured instruction blocks, which represent the code. The aim of the game is to guide Cubetto to his destination by placing the coding blocks in the right order. The robot executes the sequence of instructions laid out in the board, allowing children to experiment with the queue of instructions. The board also features a green "function block" which calls up a specific sequence of commands each time it is encountered. This sequence (of up to four commands) can be assembled on the board in an area outlined in green.

Filippo Yacob, the managing director of London-based Primo.io, told Wired.co.uk that the idea originally came from Seymour Papert's work developing a programming language called Logo during the 1970s. Logo was designed to help children solve problems and featured a small robot called the Logo Turtle. During a university class at SUPSI (the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Italian Switzerland) held by one of the Arduino Founders, Massimo Banzi, Yacob's co-founder Matteo Loglio was tasked with developing "modern artefacts that help children to become creators rather than simple consumers". "So Primo was born," explains Yacob.

 "We think that learning to program should start early with a fun and physical experience," Yacob says. "There is nothing wrong with going straight to digital, but it's just not as fun, and if it's not as fun children don't internalise and learn the logic as well. We are talking about children as young as three or four here -- physical play, spatial awareness, collaboration... these are all things that in our opinion should be part of what we consider an introduction to programming logic. Screens should come after."
The biggest challenge has been making the product affordable enough to be accessible. Currently the Primo play set costs £135 if you assemble it yourself or £160 if you buy it pre-made. "At the moment we are only producing a small batch, which means that ours costs are very high. We hope in the future to reach some scale so the product can be of a reasonable price," Yacob says.
Is it just for children? "Absolutely not! Well, the Primo set, with it's intended play experience is for children, but with the set comes a powerful little robot that you can program using Arduino."

Users can add sensors and actuators to Cubetto to allow older children or adults to program a "personality" for the robot. This should ensure that users get a lot more out of the kit.
You can pre-order the Primo kit through the project's Kickstarter page.