MakeSense is a combined team of OnAirSoft and Nsynaps that used to work together at a robot lab, and currently is developing an educational application ‘Sici’ at Hansung University. They have come up with a new say of programming method through a block. The following is BeSuccess’ interview about ‘Everyone’s Programming’ with MakeSense.
- Introduce ‘Everyone’s Programming’ for us.
‘Everyone’s Programming’ is a set of an application that children can even program and a robot that is synced with the app. As more and more people realize the important of software recently, coding is become a world trend. Coding education is being introduced in Korea nowadays. But as there was more attention towards programming, we thought ‘Should all elementary school students learn how to code?’ It is not easy. We were afraid that they might end up hating programming, by learning difficult and complicated concepts such as conditional statements, repetitive statements. Naturally, we then thought about a way to program through one rule, and that became ‘Everyone’s Programming’.
- How big is the target market? Tell us about the trend.
We are producing applications and robots that can be used after school classes in elementary schools. If we assume that one class is opened per school, there is a 14 billion won (12.8 million USD) size market in Korea. If we think about the global market and individual users, we are pretty optimistic about the future.
- What are other companies abroad that provide similar services as ‘Everyone’s Programming’ and succeeding?
Lego is the model company. Some might think they only sell blocks, but they also provide robots and tools that can program robots, called the ‘Mind Storm’ series. They are upgrading their product continuously and is making progress.
- What is the difference and strength of Everyone’s Programming compared to Lego Mind Storm?
Lego only supports PC service, while we service both PC and mobile versions. Also, we are going to simplify the synched hardware and supply it at a competitive price.
- What is MakeSense’s future plan?
We are going to increase stability and advance services in order to apply it to the general industry. Also, our technology will be released open source and reveal ways to sync the technology with other companies’ hardware. This way, more people will be able to use the technology.