LEGO-Compatible Mochi Robot Replaces the Screen with a Cuddly Bear to Teach Kids Coding

Mark Pavlyukovskyy's Learn With Mochi has a goal shared with a range of other ed-tech startups: Teach kids to code, preferably from as young an age as possible. Where his Mochi Robot project differs from most, though, is that it doesn't sit kids in front of a screen.

"It's time to take a stand against mindless screen consumption," Pavlyukovskyy writes by way of introducing his company's creation. "Instead of feeding our children junk for their growing minds why not give them a smart, healthy, and screenless option for play? Let's raise our kids to be creators, not consumers, of technology."

The Mochi Robot design puts a cuddly bear on top of a wheeled robot base, and has the players guide the robot over a gridded map — themed for each of a range of educational subjects, including colours, numbers, planets, letters, animals, and shapes — with supporting material provided by a bundled storybook.

Mochi's wheeled vehicle can be customised through included craft pieces, or using the child's own LEGO or compatible building blocks; once customised and the subject chosen, the child programs the robot using an array of wooden blocks inserted into a physical screen-free computer. Feedback is provided in the form of audio, from speech snippets to sounds and songs, while encouraging the child to debug the resulting program until the mission is completed.

Learn With Mochi's crowdfunding campaign has gone live on Kickstarter, with pledges starting at $179 for an Early Bird Mochi Explorer Kit — and, Pavlyukovskyy claims, guaranteed delivery by Christmas or a full refund if the deadline is missed. Post-crowdfunder, the company is looking at a hefty $299 recommended retail price for the base Explorer Kit, with the larger Creative and Inventor's Kit going as high as $684.

More details are available on the project's Kickstarter campaign page.