KinderLab Robotics, an Arlington-based startup, is nearly half-way toward its $50,000 Kickstarter goal to teach children ages 4 to 7 to learn how to code with a programmable robot kit.
The robot kit, called KIBO, allows children to use blocks to build a program that controls the robot's movement and sounds, and runs for $219.
The startup was founded by Mitch Rosenberg, formerly vice president of marketing and product management at Boston-based Rethink Robotics, who is now the startup's CEO; and Marina Umaschi Bers, a technology professor at Tufts University and the startup's chief scientist.
Bers said she started working on the idea for the KIBO robot kit in 2008.
"I had three young children and could not find any technologies out there to help them learn to code and gain problem solving skills in an age appropriate way," she said in an email.
If children don't develop technological skills starting at a very young age, they'll start to get frustrated with math and science when they get older, she said.
"We need to provide opportunities for young hildren when they are truly open to learning anything," said Bers, who previously helped develop an introductory programming language for children called ScratchJr.
KinderLab Robotics' goal is to ensure that every pre-school, school and home with a young child has access to KIBO and other learning technologies like KIBO, Bers said.
"As these children grow in a technological world, we believe that early exposure will help them become contributors, not just consumers, of the technological world," she said in an email.
If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, the money will be used to launch a manufacturing line. The startup had raised nearly $20,000 from 100 backers as of Monday, with 20 days left in the campaign.
