Rob Beschizza
Gear

Child Reviews One Laptop Per Child

It’s entirely too easy to get excited by the OLPC project as if it were a product like all the others, and not a non-profit program intended to get the developing world’s kids online. A testament to good design, perhaps … but what would a real-life 12-year-old kid make of the thing? "My expectations for […]

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It's entirely too easy to get excited by the OLPC project as if it were a product like all the others, and not a non-profit program intended to get the developing world's kids online. A testament to good design, perhaps
... but what would a real-life 12-year-old kid make of the thing?

"My expectations for this computer were, I must admit, not very high.
But it completely took me by surprise. It was cleverly designed, imaginative, straightforward, easy to understand (I was given no instructions on how to use it. It was just, “Here. Figure it out yourself.”), useful and simple, entertaining, dependable, really a
“stick to the basics” kind of computer."

Sounds like they got it right, eh? Anything that can work this well in so many contexts doesn't just meet a need—it could be a massive commercial success, too. To notebooks as the Rubik's Cube is to puzzles, perhaps: cheap, cheerful, and bottomless.

One Laptop Per Child, Reviewed by 12-Year-Old [Freedom To Tinker via The Tweney Review]