Soundbops is a MIDI-enabled toy for helping kids to learn and play music

Stick a piano in front of a kid and they’ll randomly hit some keys and probably have fun, but won’t learn to play music. The idea behind Soundbops (£70) is to demystify the process of playing music, but ensure it’s still a blast. Naturally, this involves luridly coloured plastic. You get a pile of ‘bops’ – notes you attach to a plastic keyboard. Turn a dial to change the instrument, and hammer away at a bop to play the note. Bops can be stacked to create chords – or cacophonies – and the kit includes accessible guides to notation and scales. And once your little musical prodigies have outgrown everything in the Soundbops box, you can connect the main unit to an iOS device via Bluetooth and have them terrorise GarageBand instead.

Craig Grannell Contributor

About

I’m a regular contributor to Stuff magazine and Stuff.tv, covering apps, games, Apple kit, Android, Lego, retro gaming and other interesting oddities. I also pen opinion pieces when the editor lets me, getting all serious about accessibility and predicting when sentient AI smart cookware will take over the world, in a terrifying mix of Bake Off and Terminator.

Areas of expertise

Mobile apps and games, Macs, iOS and tvOS devices, Android, retro games, crowdfunding, design, how to fight off an enraged smart saucepan with a massive stick.