UPDATE: The Jewelbot’s Kickstarter is now live.
Providing kids with the resources and knowledge to learn to code and program is becoming viewed as more and more important, with specific emphasis being placed towards young girls. To help provide them with an easy gateway, Jewelbots has announced a high tech friendship bracelet. The Jewelbot bracelet uses Bluetooth to communicate with other Jewelbots and even the user’s phone. By simply customizing the bracelet with an assortment of if/then statements the behavior of the integrated vibration and LED can be tailored to each user.
For girls who become comfortable with the if/then statements and want to delve deeper into programming, they can use the Arduino IDE to modify the bracelet’s open source software and enable it to further interact with the phone to accomplish anything they can imagine. In an interview with FastCompany, Jewelbots’ cofounder Brooke Moreland said “We’re really trying to change the way that girls view themselves, as far as being technologically savvy.” Head past the break for a video about Jewelbots:
