Kano has teamed up with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to launch the Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit, the first-ever Harry Potter STEM product.
The build-it-yourself wireless wand shows fans of all ages how to code and create, as you flick and swish through more than 70 challenges inspired by the Wizarding World. The wand works with software and a connected app to capture movements and turn them into effects. It lets you make serpents slither, toads transfigure, fires flow, feathers float, goblets duplicate, Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavour Beans enlarge, and more.
Following the step-by-step coding manual, you build a wand, and learn about sensors, data and code along the way. The wand combines a gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer to detect its own location and speed in tridimensional space, making it capable of tracking your hand movement. These sensors allow it to place a cursor on screen exactly where you point it, and also recognize the motions of some signature spells. You can also code the wand’s light and rumble pack.
Once assembled, makers download the Kano app to start unlocking challenges across six Wizarding World settings including Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and The Forbidden Forest. The creative challenges teach the fundamentals of coding and introduce the basic concepts of real-world programming thanks to a block-based interface and a JavaScript inspector, guided by simple steps.
The Harry Potter Coding Kit works wirelessly with iOS or Android tablets, as well as macOS or Windows computers. Existing Kano Computer Kit owners can use the wand to access 10 challenges inspired by the Wizarding World and unique to the Computer Kit.
The Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit is now available for pre-order for $99.99 at Kano.me. The kit will go on sale worldwide at Kano.me and retailers in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand starting Oct. 1. All pre-orders will receive a free Motion Sensor Kit from Kano.
The kit includes a poster that illustrates classic Wizarding World spell motions such as Incendio, Stupefy, and Wingardium Leviosa, which are featured in some special coding challenges. As with every Kano Kit, it also includes stickers, with this kit featuring stickers inspired by the Wizarding World and reimagined in the unique Kano style.
Then there’s Kano World, where anyone can make, share, and play with art, music and games made by people of all skill levels from 86 countries. It boasts 247,000-plus members, over 620,000 creations, and 55 million lines of code.
