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Primo Toys

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Primo Toys
FoundedJune 2013
FoundersFilippo Yacob, Matteo Loglio
HeadquartersLondon,
UK
Websiteprimotoys.com

Primo Toys is a London-based educational toy company founded by Filippo Yacob and Matteo Loglio, best known for creating the Cubetto Playset, an award-winning wooden robot that has been used by more than 10 million children to date, designed to teach children how to code using a tangible programming language that doesn't use screens or literacy.[1] In April 2016, Cubetto became the most crowd-funded ed-tech invention in history, when 6,553 backers pledged a total of $1,596,457 to support their Kickstarter campaign.[2] Primo Toys are backed by Randi Zuckerberg, Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi, and Liam Casey's PCH International.[3]

Overview

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Primo Toys was founded in June 2013 by Filippo Yacob and Matteo Loglio.[4][5] Unsatisfied by the status quo of educational toys on the market, they set off to create a new type of educational toy company. "Primo" means "first" in Italian, reflecting the nature of the toys the company creates as the first steps into a child's technology education.[6] The company's mission is to become "The best toy company in the world".

Primo Toys founders Matteo Loglio and Filippo Yacob .

Cubetto Playset

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The Cubetto Playset is the company's first commercial product. It's an award-winning coding kit designed to introduce computational thinking and programming logic to children aged three and up. The toy has been praised as “groundbreaking” due to its hands on programming language, which powers a wooden robot through an illustrated adventure. Cubetto has been the recipient of numerous international design awards, including a Best of Best Red Dot Design Award 2016 for concept, Gold at Cannes Lions 2016 for product design, and a 2016 D&AD pencil for impact. Cubetto has also been exhibited at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the MUDA, the V&A, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[7][8][9]

The concept

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The first idea and prototype of the playset were developed by Italian designer Matteo Loglio,[10] during his studies at MAInD Lugano in 2012.[11] The toy was initially designed as a research prototype, simply called "Primo", later used as a name for the company.[12] Matteo Loglio's design for the Primo interface was inspired by his childhood experiences with Seymour Papert's LOGO, one of the first programming language used in schools. Filippo Yacob later developed Cubetto's "cube" form and character as a way to make the product viable and gender neutral, as well as the playset's routed elements and by-tonal command sound queues that make the product accessible to blind students.

Influences and research

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The concept for Cubetto was inspired by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori's early learning methods and MIT's programming language Logo, which was designed by a team directed by Seymour Papert in the 1960s as a way to teach children the basic principles of coding.[9] The square "ground" robot that rotates only through 90 degrees while roaming a checkerboard field is similar to the screen robots (NAKIs) of the pioneering educational robotics language OZNAKI.[13] Cubetto overall is a radical innovation, but its use of coloured pieces inserted in slots/holes for robot control and training is very similar to the TORTIS system[14][15] developed by Radia Perlman within Papert's LOGO Group.

Primo Toys and the first Cubetto Playset

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In 2013 Filippo Yacob and Matteo Loglio founded the ed-tech startup Primo Toys in order to bring Cubetto to market. The company launched the first digital-fabricated version of the Cubetto Playset on the Kickstarter platform. The new version of the product introduced the smiling robot Cubetto, replacing the wooden toy car, as well as the play-mat and story books. The campaign launched on the birth day of Filippo Yacob's son Alex, and collected £56,666 from 651 backers. As a result, over 300 of the first Cubetto Playset units were built by hand in a London studio and shipped to 46 countries worldwide.[16] V1.1 and V1.2 Cubetto Playsets were also manufactured and delivered throughout 2015.[17]

Cubetto Playset 2.0 and 2016 Kickstarter campaign

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The product was re-designed for manufacturing at scale with the help of Liam Casey's PCH and Industrial designer Ben Callicott, in order to accommodate growing global demand. In April 2016, Cubetto became the most crowdfunded ed-tech invention in Kickstarter history.[18] Launching on 8 March, the company hit its original target of $100,000 in under 17 hours.[19] 30 days later, they raised $1,596,457 from 6,553 backers from more than 90 countries, and delivered the campaign 7 months later. Cubetto has been on the market ever since. Cubetto was featured in TIME Magazine, Fast Company and Wired.[20][21][22]

Awards

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References

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  1. ^ "Cubetto is a wooden robot that teaches children how to code". Dezeen. 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2016-04-26.
  2. ^ "Update 12: We've only just begun... · Cubetto - Hands on coding for ages 3 and up". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2016-04-26.
  3. ^ "Teaching Children How To Code, Without Screens". Co.Create. 2016-03-08. Retrieved 2016-04-26.
  4. ^ "Matteo Loglio & filippo Yacob, Co-founders of Primo Toys". Cereal Entrepreneur. Archived from the original on 2016-06-04. Retrieved 2016-05-22.
  5. ^ "Overfunding on Crowdcube: Primo, Maker of Smart Toys to Help Young Children Learn to Code". 21 January 2016.
  6. ^ "Primo | Master of Advanced Studies in Interaction Design". www.maind.supsi.ch. Archived from the original on 2016-08-09. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  7. ^ "Overfunding On Crowdcube: Primo, Maker Of Smart Toys To Help Young Children Learn To Code". Crowdfund Insider. 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2016-05-26.
  8. ^ "PrimoToys' Cubetto Project Surpasses $1.2M During the Final Days on Kickstarter". Crowdfund Insider. 2016-04-02. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  9. ^ a b "Cubetto is a wooden robot that teaches children how to code". Dezeen. 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  10. ^ "Matteo Loglio design". matlo. Retrieved 2019-12-03.
  11. ^ "Primo". MAInD SUPSI. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
  12. ^ "Primo". Vimeo. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
  13. ^ OZNAKI and Beyond |http://harveycohen.net/papers/79-OZNAKIandBEYOND.pdf
  14. ^ "OZNAKI Project".
  15. ^ TORTIS - Toddlers Own Recursive Turtle | "http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6224"
  16. ^ "Primo - Teaching programming logic to children age 4 to 7". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  17. ^ "Primo - Teaching programming logic to children age 4 to 7". Crowdcube. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  18. ^ "Cubetto - Hands on coding for ages 3 and up". Kickstarter. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  19. ^ Schiff, Steve (2016-03-09). "Want To Teach Your Toddler Coding But Don't Like Screens? Try This Wooden Block Instead". Fatherly. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  20. ^ Shapiro, Julie (17 March 2016). "See The New Kids' Toy That Teaches Coding". Time. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  21. ^ "This Happy Wooden Robot Teaches Toddlers To Code". Co.Design. 2016-03-10. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  22. ^ "Il gioco che insegna la programmazione ai bambini - Wired". Wired (in Italian). 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2016-05-16.
  23. ^ "GESS Education Awards Winners 2016 | GESS Awards". www.gessawards.com. Retrieved 2016-05-26.
  24. ^ "Cannes Lions Winners :: Cannes Lions Archive". www.canneslionsarchive.com. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  25. ^ "Toys | Junior Design Awards 2016 RESULTS". Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  26. ^ "Red Dot Design Award for Design Concepts". www.red-dot.sg. Archived from the original on 2016-10-18. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
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