I just had an illuminating conversation with Mark Pavlyukovskyy, co-founder of Piper. We talked about the challenges they faced during development and the peculiarities of making a product for children.

Just to recap: Piper allows you to build electronics by playing Minecraft. It captures the children’s creativity by connecting the virtual world with real wires and buttons.

The first thing that surprised me about Piper was the plywood case. And there’s a story behind that. While assembling the first prototype, the team was brainstorming ideas for the case. It should have been light enough to be carried by children and hard enough to protect valuable electronics. It also should have been cheap enough to keep the product price in chosen range. The first two requirements were satisfied by plastic “pelican cases”, yet their cost was high compared to other parts. So the team experimented with cheaper materials and found out that MDF (medium-density fibreboard, essentially pressurized wood) was just as light and durable. They rented cutting equipment and quickly made a custom case, which you can see in the picture:

Another spark of creativity involved the DIY controller. It wasn’t even part of the initial concept — instead, it was born out of project constraints. The full-fledged keyboard was too unwieldy to be put into a small case. Besides, only a handful of the keys were actually used in the game. So the team replaced it with a small keyboard-like controller that had to be manually put together before playing. To the team’s surprise, children loved this preparation step as much as the game itself, so the temporary replacement was promoted to a core product feature.

Piper is designed for children, but it must also appeal to parents and convince them that it’s more than a toy. Otherwise the parents won’t understand why they should buy a Minecraft-only computer.

The product is launching on Kickstarter soon (leave your email if you want to be notified). Prior to launch, the team is committed to drive the prototype to perfection. And one of the distinct challenges for the team is the lack of measurable, quantifiable feedback. As Mark pointed out: “You can’t just throw Google Analytics at a microcontroller”. So the only viable approach to user testing is to sit with the child and watch her play. But who knows — maybe it turns out to be good and will lead to a better product, just like the other constraints mentioned above.