Teaching children to code is no simple task, but Boulder's Sphero continues to bet big on play as a primary driver for education.
Sphero has now delved into a new arena to teach coding, music.
The education technology company announced Sunday that it launched Specdrums, the STEAM learning brand’s first music-focused product.
Specdrums are musical, app-enabled rings that allow children to create and play music by using colors on a variety of surfaces as their instruments. Built with an accelerometer, light sensor and LED's, Specdrums can recognize thousands of distinct colors and assign notes, chords or samples to them.
On the Specdrums MIX app, users can create and edit music, record samples and share completed songs.
“Sphero recognizes Specdrums as an opportunity to engage kids at the intersection of arts, math, science and technology, building a parallel framework between coding and music composition,” said Sphero CEO Paul Berberian in a statement. “By seeing the world around them as a canvas, kids are able to use Specdrums to create their own songs using coding, which is really exciting for them, their parents and their teachers. Meanwhile, the creative pattern-making of loops and sounds strengthens their math and problem-solving skills.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3916TgLt2v8
Specdrums debuted Monday at $64.99 for one-ring and $99.99 for two-rings, with the product expected to ship the week of January 15. Specdrums can also be found at select retail stores in spring 2019.
In June, Sphero acquired Boulder-based Specdrums for an undisclosed fee. University of Colorado-Boulder students formed Specdrums in fall 2017, using a Kickstarter campaign that raised nearly $200,000 to get its first versions of the rings to more than 1,900 backers. Specdrums gained additional momentum after winning the grand prize of $75,000 at the 10th annual CU Boulder New Venture Challenge in spring 2018.
Following the acquisition in June, Berberian told the Denver Business Journal that Sphero would be modifying the design of the rings to fit children and adults better, improve the texture of material and standardize the product for international sale.
Sphero's initial success can be largely attributed to its Star Wars BB-8 robotic toy released in 2015. Despite the success, the company announced in December that it will no longer produce BB-8s, R2-D2s, Lightning McQueen cars, or talking Spider-Mans as it shifts focus to educational products.
According to a September story in the Denver Business Journal, Sphero employs about 110 people in Boulder — five of whom came from Specdrums. It also has about 15 people working in Hong Kong.
Last January, the company laid off 45 employees at its Boulder headquarters as it started its restructuring to place more emphasis on education products.
In addition to Specdrums, Sphero also offers the Sphero BOLT, a robotic ball that incorporates an app and curriculum to teach coding, engineering and other sciences.