A dancing, laser beam-shooting robot aspires to teach kids how to code

The Codeybot dances, plays music, changes colors and even shoots laser beams -- all to entice little tykes to start programming. The coding toy from Shenzhen-based startup Makeblock is just the latest on the edutainment bandwagon taking things up a techie notch. It joins a talking, projectile-firing robot, a remote-controlled origami robot, code-teaching drones, and even a crawly "Code-a-Pillar" in a trend of code-teaching toys that seems to have become all the rage in the past few months alone. Within 24 hours of launching on Kickstarter on Tuesday, the Codeybot has already reached nearly 90% of its 100,000 funding goal. The toy looks like a self-balancing white cheese triangle on wheels that moves with a remote control app.