We’re all about teaching kids to code. It’s like giving them the biggest, best power tool you can imagine. Once they have a good grasp of it, they can make things that are way bigger than them, and they can reach people all over the world.
When I (Paul) was a professor at the University of Minnesota, I spent a lot of time teaching students from all different backgrounds how to code. I have three young kids of my own and I've tried all sorts of games and toys to get them started coding early. The problem is that all of the games and toys treat computers like abstract, black boxes. They overlook the fundamental, most amazing concept: how simple switches, connected together in clever ways, can do incredibly smart things.
We started designing Turing Tumble in 2015 to give kids a way to discover how computers work and to help them start coding and designing algorithms. We worked on Turing Tumble for two years, mostly on nights and weekends. We 3D printed prototypes of parts, created puzzles, and tested them out on our kids.
Once we had a good, working prototype, we wanted to make more copies of the game so others could play it, too, but the way we were making them (CNC milling), it would have cost over $1,000 per copy! To make affordable copies of the game, we needed to create injection molds. They cost a lot up front, but once you have them, it’s inexpensive to make plastic parts.
