Remember a time when rapidly evolving supercomputers weren’t an inexorable part of everyday life? Well, kids these days sure don’t! From the moment they enter the world, youngins have access to high-tech (even if they can’t comprehend it), which is all the more reason to get tots familiarized with bots at an early age. And now, thanks to Fisher-Price’s latest educational toy, the Think & Learn Code-A-Pillar, they can learn how to program at around the same time they’re learning how to walk and talk.
As Terry from Futurama would say…Â “Welcome to the world of tomorrow!”
According to Fisher-Price’s teaser blurb for the Code-A-Pillar (below), “The future coders of 2035 may only be preschoolers today, but their journey to tech hubs around the globe begins now.” Considering technology companies are “disrupting” almost every human endeavor—from entertainment to medicine to transportation—this sentiment is certainly reasonable, and also perhaps a bit frightening considering how fast computers and machines are moving.
The Code-A-Pillar however, serves as a friendly foray into the world of computer programming (although don’t look directly into its eye; when thou gazes into the Code-A-Pillar, the Code-A-Pillar gazes back into thee). It supposedly works by allowing children to change the segments of its body, which each serve as either action or directional commands, so that, depending on the sequence of segments, the movements of the Code-A-Pillar will change accordingly. The qualifier “supposedly” is used here, because the toy hasn’t been officially released yet, and won’t make its proper debut until the New York Toy Fair in February.
The Code-A-Pillar is also set to come with a companion app, which will provide a library of programming challenges for kids as they age. Although age is just a number, and as kids grow up with tech, the question is: who’s really going to need the rudimentary help, the children, or the adults?
What do you think about Fisher-Price’s Code-A-Pillar? Did you stare into its eye and get lost in that freaky cut scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey? If you’re still connected to reality, let us know in the comments section below!
—
HT: Gizmodo
Images: Mattel
