Unboxing and Making a Kano Computer

Last week I read a blog post at Kuvva blog about Kano – a Computer Kit. You can order it here.

This seemed like exactly the thing I’ve been looking for, both for me and for my kids (who are nine and six years old; we also have a baby, but she’s mostly interested in putting things in her mouth at the moment).

I’ve always been drawn to computers, I used to play with my dad’s old Apple machines in the 80s. But I never had the guts to just open one up and tinker with it. The Kano computer really takes away all fears!

Here’s what the box looked like when we got it.

The design makes you happy. All day I’ve been seeing bright colors everywhere and felt a warm fuzzy feeling about all things tech.

Me and my six year old daughter decided to do the unboxing. She immediately started examining the parts.

Together we started following the very clear instructions in the manual.

But we had to take a break when we got to the part where you connect the computer to a screen, because big brother was still playing on the PS3, and we had to connect to the TV, since the only other screen we had at home did not work with the HDMI wire.

Also baby needed feeding.

When we got connected to the TV and got the power running, the magic started. The kids started quarreling a bit over who got to type on the keyboard and follow the instructions on screen (and don’t ask me why my daughter is without her shirt all of a sudden, she tends to do that when we’re at home).

Baby sister wanted in on the fun too.

We got everything installed, and the system updated. We even took a peek at the Minecraft app, where you can do programming with Kano blocks and change the Minecraft code. Wonderful!

So this is how far we got today. I loved the whole thing. The nine year old thought the little Judoka fellow who guides you was a bit silly, but I felt the whole design was very fun and friendly. I’ll write a bit more when we get to learning and playing around more with our Kano!

January: Storybook characters and Doctors

I’m still on maternity leave until the end of February, but I’ve done some projects during January.

First there’s Daleks for Doctors. The idea came from a facebook-group I’m in, Geek Women Workout. A member wanted a T-shirt with Daleks saying “Exercise! Exercise!”, so I decided I needed to make those tees happen. All profits will go to Doctors without borders, as the idea was not mine, and I’ve been waiting for the chance to do a charity project.

Here’s one of the prints:

And the print is available in my Society6-shop! Chop chop and go shopping!

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Since I’m with a very mobile 8 month old baby right now I can’t do a lot of digital stuff at the computer, so I’ve done mostly graphite sketching while the baby is on the floor exploring. A series of storybook characters have emerged! Here’s Goldilocks:

She, and Snow White, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel will soon get the full on digital treatment. Stay tuned 🙂