CES 2019 – Sphero launches Specdrums, app-enabled silicon rings empowering kids of all ages and skill levels to create and play music by using colors on a variety of surfaces as their instruments. Tap on different hues to create your own masterpieces on the corresponding app with hundreds of instruments, loops and sounds.

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Sphero is a tech-company utilizing play as a powerful teacher. “In Specdrums we see an opportunity to engage kids at the intersection of arts, math, science and technology, building a parallel framework between coding and music composition,” says the company’s CEO Paul Berberian to Archipanic.

“By seeing the world around them as a canvas, kids are able to use Specdrums to create their own songs using coding, which is really exciting for them, their parents and their teachers. Meanwhile, the creative pattern-making of loops and sounds strengthens their math and problem-solving skills.”

Indeed, the rings were developed with educators in mind and transitions well from the home into the classroom, supplementing students’ use of more costly, singular instruments and providing classrooms with cost-effective modern technology. “Educators can build a fully integrated tech-to-classroom experience through both STEM and fine arts fundamentals,” explain at Sphero to Archipanic.

Studies have shown that music can improve students’ critical reasoning, language skills and fine motor skills. Music and the arts also present an entry point to technology for kids who may not have otherwise explored it, and vice versa. “Kids can discover an artistic form of coding using their imagination, whether it’s in the classroom, at a friend’s house or on the playground.”

Specdrums retails at $64.99 for one-ring and $99.99 for two-rings and introduces a variety of features such as a multi-color playpad to tap the rings on and customizable sounds that allow users to explore the beats of a drum and the pings of a keyboard or the unique sounds of 100-plus other instruments, all with their fingertips.

All images: courtesy of Sphero.

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