Microsoft’s Project Torino helps visually impaired kids participate in coding classes

As it stands now, teaching younger children how to write code is still a new art – certainly not one that’s been perfected. One of the primary ways to do it takes the form of programs like Scratch, which has users arrange pieces of code together in colored blocks. Microsoft’s Project Torino plans to bring that concept to the physical realm, opening up coding avenues for the visually impaired and other challenged learners.

Project Torino–a physical programming language for kids with visual impairments to create code https://t.co/xlRLZwgfQW pic.twitter.com/y12dKSZp8m

— Microsoft Research (@MSFTResearch) March 15, 2017

Microsoft wrote up a blog post talking about the inception and development of the project, and it’s an excellent read. The researchers behind Torino insist that development was a group effort with the children, noting that “We thought we were going to be doing something for them but we ended up designing with them.”

The beta period for Project Torino isn’t here yet, but the Microsoft Research team has put up a mailing list to sign up for if you’d like to stay up to date on things. When the team starts offering units for testing, you’ll get notified.