Don’t buy your kids a camera, let them build one with the Kano Camera Kit

Sure, digital cameras designed for kids teach basic photography skills, but what about codings skills or DIY photo editing? The Kano Camera Kit is now close to getting in consumers’ hands after a half-million dollar Kickstarter campaign. During the Consumer Electronics Show, Kano shared the latest prototype for the camera kit.

The Kano Camera Kit is a DIY digital camera designed to teach kids well beyond the photo basics, but coding and creative photo manipulation, too. Kano, a London, England-based company, says the kit is as easy to build as Lego bricks, with detailed guides. After constructing the 5-megapixel camera, kids can code their own photo filters or use code to change the color of the flash. Kids can also use the camera to create GIFs and explore other creative ways to manipulate the image.

The latest prototype, following the successful Kickstarter campaign, will be shown at CES, the first time the kids tech company has participated in the annual trade show. Attendees can try out the camera on the show floor, while anyone interested in the DIY camera kit can sign up for a new email list to get an alert when the kit is available.

“Our goal is to open up technology, so that anyone can understand and shape it,” Alex Klein, co-founder and CEO of Kano, said. “We are thrilled to bring simple, playful, creative computing to CES for the first time.”

Kano is the same company behind the $250 laptop kids can build themselves, a Raspberry Pi-based computer kit that launched last year. Along with the kits to build the actual hardware, the company uses DIY coding kits to program the software.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Got a new camera? Make the most of it with this camera guide for beginners
• Best camera of 2017
• The best DSLR cameras for beginners
• This $207 gadget turns old film cameras into digital shooters
• Rylo 360 camera review