Accio JavaScript! New Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit available for pre-order

Educational tech company Kano is combining Muggle technology and magic in unprecedented fashion. Kano has created an app and software to enable you to learn coding magically, using your wand.  Actually, you have to use their wand, but it IS a wand, and it creates code when you wave it at your computer screen.  Yes, we were told that Muggle technology and magic go together like Snape and shampoo but you don’t have to take our word for it, watch this promotional video from Kano:

Technology looks like magic until you understand how it works.  “We’re surrounded by technology in our homes, workplaces, and pockets, yet only a small percent of people, less than 1% of 1%, understand the happenings behind the screen,” said Alex Klein, Co-Founder and CEO of Kano. “We are thrilled to partner with Warner Bros Consumer Products to inspire people of all ages, all over the world, to make their own code, and see how easy it can be to understand, play, and create with it.”

When you bought your wand from Ollivander’s, it came pre-assembled—you didn’t have to stuff the unicorn hair, phoenix feather, or dragon heartstring inside yourself.  Kano’s wand requires a bit of assembly but it takes just a few seconds to snap it together, and gives you the satisfaction of knowing what’s inside.  The gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer that enable the wand to interact with your screen sound as if they would not be out of place amongst the delicate instruments in Dumbledore’s office.

Did we mention that the wand lights up?  Well, of course it does, remember the Lumos spell (Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2, Chapter 3)?  You can change the colour of the light, and have your wand direct 200+ sounds.

Once you’ve assembled your wand, you can download the app to your device and complete over 70 Harry Potter-themed challenges that get progressively more advanced as you learn-by-doing in a playful Wizarding World environment across six iconic settings, including Dragon Alley, Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest, and Hogsmeade.  As in a game environment, you unlock rewards as you complete coding challenges, which enrich the environment with more Potter-themed costumes, creatures, XP, and medals.  The Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit is the first official Harry Potter STEM education product.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you’ll be able to Engorgio a screenful of pumpkins, multiply (or decrease) goblets, owls, grindylows, and mandrakes with a flick of your wand, play music on a harp to pacify any three-headed dogs in your vicinity, levitate feathers with Wingardium Leviosa, Incendio a screenful of fire, and much more.

Whether you are already at N.E.W.T. level in your coding skills or just attempting your first spell, you will find this kit both challenging and fun:

Kano’s unique step-by-step approach makes it easy for beginners to understand coding concepts and principles and helps develop real coding skills. For anyone who already knows how to code, the coding wand is a great tool to create their own art and music all controlled with specific movements.

This magical coding kit is compatible with Mac and Windows, Android and iOS.  It comes with a spell poster to help you learn the motions for some common spells, and stickers, because who doesn’t love stickers?

For $100, you can pre-order your Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit here.  No word on whether it will come by owl post.  Official release date is 1 October, so you can be an expert coder by the time Crimes of Grindelwald comes out in mid-November.