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Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

jewelbots.com

111–120 of 173 posts

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#111
post #25

This would be a lot better if it was priced closer to cost. $70 is excessive for an a few RGB LEDs, microcontroller and a buzz motor. These things can't cost more than $10 to manufacture even at low scale. You have to buy at least 2 for it to be interesting they should sell them for $20-$40 each. Maybe the pricing will come down as they get orders. Very cool concept though. I hope they have some patents on it or they…

Agree, super cool.

I get hung up on strange addition in pricing.

1 for 69

2 for 99 = 69 + 30

3 for 129 = 69 + 30 * 2

10 for 430 = 129 * 3 + 30 + 13

69 + 30 * 9 = 339 != 430

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#112
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the nearly inevitable drama of teen girl lives more expensive as the devices are discarded as rapidly as BFFs and boyfriends." This is an untrue stereotype. I would argue that this stereotype, teen girls are unnecessarily and overly dramatic, is one of the same stereotypes that dissuades girls from coding in the first place.

You can argue that but, out of curiosity, I just sent my daughter a text. Me: 'How long do you think you kept friendship bracelets for?' Her reply: 'Maybe two weeks. I still have one from [redacted] somewhere.' As I said, it surely isn't universal but she and her friends all fit that pattern. It didn't keep her from STEM, she's an MD.

> It didn't keep her from STEM, she's an MD.

That's not out of the norm; roughly half of medical students are women: https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/

The "shortage of women in STEM" mostly refers to engineering and computer science.

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#113
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! That grade school teacher needs a few more science lessons. We have lots of users that identify as male. Boys love Jewelbots, two weeks ago at an event a boy came up to me after to tell me "this was more fun than coding Minecraft". Best compliment in a while.

How do you know the teacher is wrong based on science? Do you have citations? "Boys and girls are wired differently" seems like an eminently plausible statement -- it applies to the rest of our bodies, so why not to our brains? I don't think it can be rejected out of hand without a solid argument (or reputable studies) to the contrary.

It's so vague as to be unfalsifiable, and therefore an unscientific claim. By the same reasoning, it's plausible that our brains are powered by yet undiscovered magic.

The teacher made a nonsense, and unscientific claim. Do you have citations to back up your "argument", or are you just trolling?

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do men and women need to be the same? Isn't it ok to be different?

It's absolutely okay to be different. In fact, everybody is different, and that's one of the big problems with trying to slot people into one of two buckets.

We aren't that different.

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Learn to code->it will help you get a guy. I don't think I reasonable person would get this from the quote you posted. Does it even appear in any of the material on the site? Or was it an off the cuff example in an interview? Regardless, I'm unclear on why this is offensive, can you elaborate?

I guess the simplification I drew may not apply to everyone (edited). The off the cuff example given in the interview seemed to reinforce the idea that middleschool girls should be worried about guys and that didn't seem very empowering to me.

I understand where you are coming from and I appreciate the thought, but - if you think about it from a teenager's perspective - it's a very relatable example. Teens will be teens, and they will communicate about that kind of stuff no matter what. If I had daughters, I'd be really proud if they programmed their own little protocol rather than just sending paper notes back and forth :)

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely okay to be different. In fact, everybody is different, and that's one of the big problems with trying to slot people into one of two buckets.

We aren't that different.

If we weren’t “that” different, gender reassignment would not be a thing.

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#117
post #67
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! We talked to over 200 girls when making this product, rest assured that every design decision was made with their feedback in mind. Boys also love playing with Jewelbots, but there are already a lot of coding toys aimed at boys!!! Our market primarily identifies as female, but we'll broaden down the road.

I was at a conference this weekend. A female grade school teacher, at a private school, tried to explain to me how "girls brains are wired differently from boys" and therefore "we need to teach girls to be more like boys." I am open minded. I've met and worked with women who are just as strong or stronger than men. I don't understand how we can simultaneously argue that men and women are fundamentally different but s…

> A female grade school teacher, at a private school, tried to explain to me how "girls brains are wired differently from boys"

While an oversimplification, this seems to be generally true; females are biologically different than males and those differences seems to have psychological/behavioral manifestations.

Its still difficult to isolate socialization effects from biological ones, but the indications seem to be that there are real, biologically grounded differences.

> and therefore "we need to teach girls to be more like boys."

Wait, what? Wouldn't that be a reason to stop trying to do that, at least where those biological grounded differences have strong effects?

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#118
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! That grade school teacher needs a few more science lessons. We have lots of users that identify as male. Boys love Jewelbots, two weeks ago at an event a boy came up to me after to tell me "this was more fun than coding Minecraft". Best compliment in a while.

How do you know the teacher is wrong based on science? Do you have citations? "Boys and girls are wired differently" seems like an eminently plausible statement -- it applies to the rest of our bodies, so why not to our brains? I don't think it can be rejected out of hand without a solid argument (or reputable studies) to the contrary.

> "Boys and girls are wired differently" seems like an eminently plausible statement

That premise, while perhaps controversial in some corners, seems essential problematic than the conclusion it was offered to support (which it doesn't.)

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't that different.

If we weren’t “that” different, gender reassignment would not be a thing.

If gender reassignment was performed on 40% of the population I would agree with you.

Re: Jewelbots – A Friendship Bracelet You Can Code

#120

I want to be cynical because I hate the idea that a gadget has to have "jewel" in the name and be a fancy "friendship bracelet" to appeal to girls. But it's a neat little trinket that somebody worked hard on, and if it really was a young woman who designed it to enjoy with their friends, I can't really hold that against them. I don't think scaring away guys from it by saying it's "for girls" is doing them any favors…

Goldieblox does the same thing. Everything is stereotypically girly. You have to assume they did some research and that's what girls want.

> You have to assume they did some research and that's what girls want.

Or they did some research and that's what potential members of the target audience who aren't already buying into existing products of the same type aside from consideration of the gender-orientation of marketing want.

That those people are largely girls is, well, kind of beside the point: why compete in a crowded market when by marketing in a particular way you can compete in a more open niche.

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