Despite the fact that companies have been making leaps and bounds in supporting initiatives to bring more women into tech, it's no secret that tech is largely a male-dominated industry.
The Jewelbot is a bracelet for young girls, designed to get them interested in coding and teach them the basics of coding.
"Jewelbots are friendship bracelets for the iPhone era," says the Jewelbots Kickstarter. "Technology-enabled jewelry for tween and teen girls, they're a means of communicating with friends by lighting up when a BFF is near or buzzing to send messages to a pal across the school."
At the time of this writing, Jewelbots had already more than doubled its funding goal of $30,000, standing at around $71,000 with 24 days still to go.
The actual bracelet is pretty simple, equipped with four LED lights and a small button. They can connect to the Jewelbots iOS or Android app and are able to hold a charge for three days. Users can add their friend groups to the app, assigning a color to that group of friends. When other members of the group are nearby, the bracelet will light up with the color assigned. Users can also send "secret messages" in sequences of vibrations to their friends.
While the bracelets work properly out of the box, the idea is more that girls will get them and personalize them using the Arduino IDE, which helps them program specific commands. For example, users can program the device to give them specific colored notifications.
Of course, it does seem like telling young people to publicly color-code their friend groups could be problematic.
"We talked to 200 girls between the ages of 9 and 14 about what interests them, and universally what we heard is that friendship is huge to them as they're coming into their own and deciding who their tribe is," said Sara Chipps, co-founder and CEO of Jewelbots in an interview with TechCrunch.
Those interested in backing Jewelbots will have to pledge $59 or more to get their own, with prizes for less having already been sold. Pledges range up to $5,000, which will get the user a pack of five Jewelbots and a private coding workshop. The bracelets will retail in 2016 for $65 each.
Jewelbots itself will also be building up a range of wearable devices to boost signal strength without having to rely on things like smartphones. It will also be developed more educational wearable devices for teens.
Via: TechCrunch
