Three brightly colored boxes sit in the middle of the table. Alex Klein, co-founder and CEO of Kano, takes the yellow one and pops open the lid, revealing an array of small plastic parts inside. They sit neatly in the foam, begging to be plucked out and examined. A transparent case. Lenses and a flash ring. Some have a Post-it note on top, the word "best" scribbled in biro. Klein chuckles, admitting that some of the parts "may be completely busted." I don't mind. At this point, Kano is still a few weeks out from its next Kickstarter campaign. It'll be a while before the kits are put into mass production.
A camera, a speaker and a light board. Kano is pitching all three as a new, friendly way for children to learn about electronics and computing. Each pack comes with a booklet featuring step-by-step instructions, rather like a Lego set. You pull out the parts and clip them together, learning what each of them does and how they contribute to the final product. Once you've completed the build, you can hook up a laptop, tablet or smartphone and program its behavior. Kano's new web-based software includes a bunch of creative projects, all of which teach you to code along the way.