Launched on Kickstarter on the 19th November kano, a $99 dollar computer ‘anyone can make’ has passed its funding deadline. Its original target was $100,000 but this was passed in less than 18 hours on the first day, leaving a month to go until the funding deadline. By the end, Project Kano had raised $1,522,160 from 13,387 backers. Two of those backers were reported to be Steve Wozniak (yes, that Steve Wozniak) and Yancey Strickler, one of the founders of Kickstarter.

 

The main board is a Raspberry Pi but this project is not just another of those ‘complete package’ bundles containing all the necessary peripherals. Experimenting with the RPi, one of the company’s founders recognised that a certain level of competency was necessary to get the RPi up and running. When he gave one to his 6-year old cousin it was too difficult for him, he wanted something as easy as LEGO to play with.

 

Good attention to detail is shown in the Kit’s design which also requires a monitor or TV to hook up to its HDMI cable. It comes with an SD card loaded with Kano OS which is a distribution of Debian Linux and includes an interface that feels a bit like a console game. It runs six Kano Levels, software projects to make Pong, Snake, Minecraft, videos, and music so that you can begin coding quickly. It is also loaded with Scratch, Codecademy, and ‘Hacking Fundamentals’, an introduction to the world of the Linux shell.