Over Coffee® is on Fourth of July weekend hiatus. Please enjoy this reposting of one of our top episodes of early 2025!
The ILO educational robot, from Quimper, France, is available for pre-order in the U.S.!
And ILO is unique in several ways.
Designed to teach programming progressively, it initially takes beginning students through elementary block-coding lessons. Then, as the students continue their learning journey, lessons become more involved.
Ultimately, the student will be able to program ILO by using the Python programming language.
In addition, ILO is designed to move both forward and sideways. And it’s open-source, allowing users to 3D print their own accessories and customize their robots.
Plus, it’s built for durability, with replaceable or easily-reparable components. Conceivably, a student could receive an ILO robot in elementary school, and use it throughout their entire academic career–including college.
(It’s also extremely cute, with huge eyes and a small mouth that looks on the verge of smiling!)
In this interview from February 2025, just before the first models shipped, ILO Founder Simon Le Berre shared the story of creating his innovative educational robot, explained its capabilities and discussed what may be coming next!
On this edition of Over Coffee® we cover:
- How Simon first became interested in robotics;
- The story of the ILO, and how he came to create it;
- How the robot evolved, to go from a primary-school learning tool to university-level programming instruction;
- An example of a young student’s programming learning journey, from primary school to learning programming at the university level;
- Some of the features users can create and add to the robot;
- Simon’s creative goal, with ILO;
- How a teacher who isn’t necessarily “technical” can work with the robot;
- Simon’s experience at CES® 2025;
- One of the lessons he learned, from his experience creating the robot;
- What’s next!;
- One of the most “fun” experiences of Simon’s creative journey;
- One of the design challenges of ILO.