Osmo Coding teaches young children basics of programming

The first Osmo kits made a splash because they gave children a way to interact with the iPad using physical objects.

Parents are increasingly keen to prepare their children for the jobs of tomorrow. picture: Getty Images

When parents these days hear the old saying “The jobs of tomorrow haven’t been invented yet”, they tend to add, “So my child had better learn to code.” As software has redefined a range of industries and professions, many parents are rushing to make sure their children learn the building blocks of computer programming.

Toy and game developers have responded. One recent entry — and, for young children, one of the best — is the iPad-exclusive Osmo Coding by Tangible Play. Using plastic bricks that represent computer commands, children arrange “scripts” that the iPad’s cam­era interprets as instructions for a cute on-screen character to act on.

When the first Osmo kits appeared last year, they made a splash because they gave children a way to interact with the iPad using physical objects. One reason for the runaway success of products such as Lego is that children physically manipulate the toys, a trait that early childhood education experts smile on. Parents who feel guilty that their children stare too idly at glowing pixels can use Osmo to turn screentime into physical playtime.

From the start, Osmo’s line-up included sets of numbers, letters and the colourful Chinese geometric tiles known as tangrams. The iPad sits upright in Osmo’s base, with a red mirror attached to the iPad camera that lets the tablet look down on a play area where children manipulate pieces.

In a maths game, players position numbers to win exotic fish. With letters, they play a Hangman-like word-guessing game. Using tangrams, they create increasingly complicated animals and other objects.

But all along the developers of Osmo also had envisioned a coding game based on the same principles. The kit — with base and mirror for $US75 ($100), sold separately for $US49 — includes blocks needed for basic gaming: move, jump and grab, for starters. Children string them together, add variables such as numbers and loops, then push the play button on a green brick to execute their script. On the iPad, a creature named Awbie follows these mini computer programs, navigating increasingly complicated mazes and obstacles.

Awbie started out as a robot, but the developers realised that robots tended to skew a bit masculine, so they morphed Awbie into a gender-neutral character. “Girls think it’s a girl and boys think it’s a boy,” says Pramod Sharma, chief executive of Tangible Play.

As children build out their scripts, tiles light up on screen, showing a preview of Awbie’s movements. Tweak the code, and the preview changes with it. While most pieces are straightforward, there’s a more advanced piece meant for conditional situations. For instance, if, while walking forward six squares, Awbie hits a bush before finishing, it can be instructed to jump over the obstacle.

Once children begin moving up levels, they collect rainbow-coloured strawberries, beaver-guarded tree stumps and other commodities to build up their campsite. They end up with bigger tents, crazier campfires and a corral where, eventually, their prize pets can live.

Osmo Coding’s purpose is to teach the basic concepts of programming rather than programming itself. “It’s about how you put your thoughts together in a way that computers understand,” Sharma says. “It’s similar to learning a language.”

Sharma, 35, grew up in a rural part of India and learned both coding and English only when he got to college. He’s now based in the US and an eight-year veteran of Google — and his six-year-old daughter is chief product tester for the company.

Sharma left Google to co-found Tangible Play partly in response to the pressure that parents feel.

He says he understands: “If every kid in India and China is learning coding, it’s natural that parents would feel that.”