Gadgetory

what's up guys Ibrahim with Harkin X and today we're checking out something very exciting from the folks over at keno now Kano is a creative computing company that focuses on providing computer kits and accessories for users who are interested in technology and have the desire to learn how to code age is not a requirement here because it's for everyone every in fact every product that keno advertises is for everyone out there including app developers so if you like to build something creative with the help of coding then you know these kits might definitely or should definitely interest you now what I have here is the computer kit bundle that retails for $300 and I feel like that's a great deal because you're getting a screen you're also getting a Raspberry Pi through a unit a keyboard and trackpad along with the necessary cables to get you up and running so you don't have to worry about getting an external monitor or you know power cables and whatnot everything is inside this bundle so that's awesome kino also provides a different kit at various price points to get you started for instance there's the entry-level pixel kit that retails for $80 and it's basically a 16 by 8 LED programmable kit that can be used to code dazzling lights build your own games create animations and perhaps paint with light all you need is a computer that runs either Windows or Mac OS in order to download the Kano app from the website to program the pics ok however I will be connecting this pixel kit to my computer gear over here because Kano has pre-installed the necessary applications to get me up and running so that's what we'll be doing for this video there's also a motion sensor kid that's priced around $30 it can be used to make music and games and it can be controlled by simply swiping and waving your hands pretty cool stuff in my opinion just to be aware the computer kid bundle can be picked up separately so this computer kit can be picked up for $150 and the scream kit can be picked up for another hundred fifty dollars so the options are very flexible depending on how much you'd like to spend so with that being said let's unbox this bundle alright guys I do want to spend some time and talk about the building experience because it was very intuitive simple to understand and most importantly it was fun each kit comes with their respective bill guides along with stickers if you're interested in personalizing devices everything is well laid out and the user gets to learn about each and every component powering the entire kit this includes everything from how a CPU processes data to how a graphics chip passes commands to the screen you know what's even cool colored cables guys I mean check this out keno includes a red micro USB cable a blue 3.5 millimeter audio cable and a yellow HDMI cable that's right a yellow HDMI cable and all of this encompasses into a colorful and creative learning experience and I'm really diggin it so far now let's quickly go over the setup for the computer kit bundle the screen is powered via micro USB and it connects to the Raspberry Pi 3 unit via HDMI speaking of the Raspberry Pi unit it comes with 4 USB 2.0 ports a LAN port audio output which has already been occupied by the built-in speaker HDMI output and a micro USB port for power just to be clear both the screen and the computer are powered via this single 5 volt USB power supply the included keyboard and trackpad unit is Wireless and it connects to the computer through the USB receiver so that's pretty cool moving on to the pixel kit it has been by far my most favorite unit among the other three it's so much fun to play around with and it's also a great addition for your learning experience first and foremost the pixel kit can be operated by its own because it features a battery and if you want to program it you can definitely pair it up to the computer via Wi-Fi there are 5 moments that you can cycle through but out-of-the-box kano only preloaded with two modes the rest are designed to be programmed by the end user the built-in presets are very interesting for instance the audio visualizer reacts to sounds so I can talk to the kid and it'll simulate a cool waveform I can also change the color of the waveform to my desire using the joystick and there are also two extra buttons that you could use to you know switch between presets the game mode dial features three classics including Super Snake Rainbow Runner and breakout you would have to use the joystick obviously to control you and I have to admit it was a lot of fun guys and it took away my productivity time which could be positive or negative depending on how you take it now setting up the pixel kit to your computer is pretty straightforward all you have to do is download the aquino app directly from the website and once you go through the installation procedure you just have to head over to the pixel kit option within the app and pair the pixel kit to your Wi-Fi network this is actually a pretty cool feature because right now I have the pixel kit connected to my Wi-Fi network and of course my counters associated with kano in remember you have to create an account if you want to take advantage of the challenges and of course have everything synched up so if whatever changes I make within the aquino app will automatically be synced to the keno pixel kit which is pretty awesome in my opinion because you don't have to worry about connecting it every time if you want to transfer or run a particular code it just works automatically and that's pretty awesome now programming the pixel kit evolves around building blocks and it's not about you know writing the advanced code lines to you know get it up and running in my case I have I followed a few tutorials to get this weather which is up and running and it's pretty straightforward so I have the location set to Tirana because this weather widget heavily relies on your location and what happens is when with these if statements that are over here reflects upon and it starts cross-checking with the weather widget so in my case I've said the location to Toronto and if the weather is cloudy it'll cross-check that with the weather widget and it'll start to show cloudy if it's rainy it will cross check with the weather widget and I'll start to show rainy if it's snowing I'll cross-check you'll see it'll show snowy and if it's sunny it'll cross check and it'll start to show sunny so right now in Toronto it is pretty sunny out there and it looks like it has accurately determined that weather condition and it starts displaying sunny on the pixel kit now what I can also do is head over to the location setting and change to a different City so in my case I can just head over Toronto edit that to Ottawa and I'll start displaying cloudy because what it just did is update the weather widget so it checked marked and set that to Ottawa and then it started reading these if statements and it seems to have matched with it seemed to have cross-checked it with this statement over here which is if weather is cloudy set the weather widget or the to cloudy to display the cloud figure so the creating part doesn't end here there are always different options and just a multitude of things that you can do with the pixel kit there's actually a tap for different creations that you can share with other community members as you can see you know we have a Pikachu a display which is actually very interesting there's also you know Mario 3 you know things like this that seem to be very exciting and you can always learn from their codes and understand how they were able to create something like this and you can build you can use that as an inspiration and start working yourself to create something that might be unique to do yourself and of course to the members out there I've also created a few more programs for the pixel kit other than just the weather app this pixel painting app starts with a single pixel that cycles between different colors and once they start moving around the entire kit the pixels start to move up and down side to side painting the entire screen it uses the included tilt sensor which is just an accelerometer to receive the positional readings and start sending that data to the app which I thought was pretty cool I was also able to create this firelight simulation for the kid and it looks through every second so like I mentioned earlier the possibilities of creating programs for the pixel kid are endless let's switch gears and talk about the computer kit bundle as you can see I have the screen connected to the Raspberry Pi 3 unit and the keyboard the whole system powers on by just plugging in the microUSB cable you are greeted into the home screen and displays all the major applications to help you learn how to code for instance you can head over to the Econo code app now this is sort of the central hub when it comes to learning tutorials and stuff like that for example you have the option to learn how to take advantage of the speaker that's inside the Raspberry Pi 3 unit so over here you can see you can you know start from level 1 can go 2 all the way to level 6 and get you know get yourself familiar eyes with the with the system there's also options to learn how to use the pixel kit so for instance I have to go through the training session to understand and familiarize myself with how to use this pixel kit and it turned out pretty well I mean I ended up you know enjoying like my time with the pixel kit there's also the option to code and learn how to you don't draw art with the help of coding so if I just quit here for a second so this application allows you to draw pictures with the help of coding so for instance let me go over and click this smiley face emoji and you know I can start to learn how to code with the help of just you know simple few steps so as you can see what I've done here is just write a few things like you know select the color yellow you can also you know start adding a stroke and set the level depending on you can set a certain value so for example 20 will set the thickness of the stroke effect you can also do things like you know hit circle and add the value of the intensity of the circle so for instance 200 means I'm gonna get a pretty large circular figure it really is an excellent option an excellent way to learn how to code with just a few steps and as you can see it's very simple but this I definitely had a lot of fun just trying to learn how to you know draw things with the help of coding so this is an interesting application it's called hack minecraft and what this allows you to do is program certain keys within the keyboard to enable a certain command so what I've done here is actually called a named a function called name if I especially what it does is when I press a key for existence for instance I have programmed C as my command it will display a little add a text named Hardware canucks so if I go back to my game here for a second all I have to do is hit C and you can sort of see where hard-working X is so I have to do is just go back and take a little glimpse at what it's like and as you can see it looks pretty amazing now you can see Harbor connects in all its glory so this is this is pretty awesome you know you can do certain things like add towers and assign certain commands within your keys to help you know build your own world within Minecraft and I think this is something that I'm definitely going to spend some time on it I have to make a confession here I really haven't played minecraft this is my first time actually getting to experience this game so if any of you guys out there are you know minecraft lovers well you can go as much as you wanted to come and down below I should also mention that this is a fully functioning computer because keno doesn't just restrict you the applications that teach you how to code but there are other programs that are installed on the Raspberry Pi third unit that you could take advantage of you know if you want to just do regular work for instance there is a browser if you want to browse things there's also an app store that you know has whatsapp if you want to communicate with your friends or family there's Wikipedia there's Google Maps Google Drive Gmail there's even a youtube app if you want to watch HD videos not 4k because the hardware is not capable of that and there's also a task manager built inside was so if you want to monitor your applications you can certainly do that now kano is actually running their operating system which is based off Linux so it is open source and so if you want to switch things around you can definitely just unplug the SD card and you know plug in a fresh new card and take it from there if you so desire what kano has accomplished here with the computer kit and the pixel kit is revolutionary I mean consuming technology is a great experience from one end but understanding the simple backbone structure behind you know that builds the entire ecosystem is fascinating sure this kits not gonna help you build a most advanced software out there but it's a great stepping stone towards that learning process to get you to that level the visual building blocks helped me understand simple algorithms behind the weather app that I created and the pixel kit is a great accessory to help you interact with you know your creations it's also a great way to start a conversation you know between family and friends and of course you can have fun with your family and friends by just simply tossing ideas and creating applications so overall you know it's a great kit it can be used for fun it's also you know visually very appealing and I'm definitely gonna you know have this in my living room I'll be playing around with it here and then of course I can start programming games and stuff on this pixel kit and start gaming on this LED screen so yeah it's going it's gonna be pretty fun so I would love to hear your thoughts on this entire kit from Kano what do you guys think about this entire ecosystem specifically the computing kid there's Green kit and the pixel kid let us know in the comments down below links to purchasing these kits will be in the description down below as well you also get a $5 coupon code so I'll leave that in the description down below but yeah let me know what you guys think about it I'm Ivar with Huracan access thank you so much for watching make sure to subscribe for more similar content and we'll see you in the next one