The latest effort to engage young girls in coding comes in the form of a bracelet. Quartz reports on this in a recent article titled “This hi-tech friendship bracelet wants to get girls coding.”

Alice Truong of Quartz writes, “Jewelbots, a New York City-based startup, is hoping its programmable bracelet will spark an interest in science and technology for little girls. The company launched a Kickstarter project yesterday to cover the cost of manufacturing, easily blowing past its $30,000 goal, and it plans to ship its first batch of bracelets in March 2016. Jewelbots is the brainchild of Sara Chipps, cofounder of the nonprofit group Girl Develop It, and Brooke Moreland, who previously founded a fashion photo-sharing app called Fashism. The two wanted to create a wearable that little girls would want to tinker with. ‘We didn’t want a teaching tool,’ Moreland tells Quartz. ‘We wanted them to be inspired by natural curiosity—something they think is fun.’ The bracelet was designed to be very basic. There is no screen, but its charm has a motor and four LEDs that can be programmed to change colors based on different triggers. For example, it can match the color of the bracelet of a girl’s best friend when she is nearby. A button on Jewelbots also allows wearers to buzz their friends. (Since many classrooms bar smartphone usage, the bracelets use a mesh Bluetooth network that allows for bracelet-to-bracelet communication without a phone.)… It’s estimated that only 20% of computer programmers are women. Though tech companies have become more transparent about the diversity of their workforce, they are still slow to hire women (and minorities) in technical roles. At Apple, 20% of its tech workers (as opposed to marketing or business development) are women. At Yahoo, Google, and Facebook, the numbers vary from 15% to 18%.”

At CodeRev Kids, we’re encouraged when we see innovative efforts to engage underrepresented groups in coding education. That is why we take a customized approach to your child’s curriculum.

We emphasize Computational Thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. At CodeRev Kids, we are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, but we also keep the focus on having fun. Our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology. For more information, check out our different after school Tracks of STEM and coding camps!