At a time when the education intelligent hardware market is competing, the "Sweep Learning Machine K6" launched by α coefficient egg has attracted attention with its unique positioning. This autumn, Liu Qingsheng, chairperson of Taoyun Technology, and Wu Yusheng, president of Taoyun Technology, gave an exclusive interview to the media, detailing the whole process of this product from conception to implementation. The lines are full of careful observation of children's learning needs and a deep understanding of the essence of education.
1. Follow the child's needs to "grow naturally"
"Making a product is like raising a child, you have to adjust it a little bit as it grows," Liu Qingsheng describes the iterative process of the α coefficient egg product. Liu Qingsheng describes the iterative logic of the α coefficient egg product in this way. At first, the team just wanted to solve a simple problem: let children look up words without memorizing 20 reference books. Therefore, the first generation of dictionary pens was born. The content of 20 reference books was packed into a pen, and the child looked up a word and could see the explanation of different reference books at the same time. "At that time, I thought it was convenient enough."
But after actually walking into the children's learning scene, they found that "not enough". Children learn English, know words but do not understand grammar; learn Chinese characters, want to know "why this word is written like this"; do math problems, scan the questions and want to know the step analysis. "It's like giving a child a key, he not only wants to open the door, but also wants to know how to arrange the room behind the door." Liu Qingsheng said that the team began to add functions to the dictionary pen: talk about grammar, parse the evolution of Chinese characters, and solve the problem steps, so that it can be changed from "search tool" to "teaching method".
By the first two years, sales of the dictionary pen had become the industry's largest, but new troubles have emerged. Liu Qingsheng found that when children want to use it to do more, they are always stuck by "hardware bottlenecks": the screen is narrow and long, like the early pen design, showing the steps of a math problem is laborious; when scanning a large area of content, they have to scan back and forth several times, and if they don't pay attention, they will miss words. "The fourth-generation D1 Pro has added a camera, but the lens is too narrow, and it is still inconvenient to shoot questions. It is like using a small cup to catch rainwater, and they are always dissatisfied."
So the team decided to "make the cup bigger". They widened the scan width, from the original single line length to cover the entire text; the screen expanded to a 4.98-inch high definition retina screen, about the size of an early Apple 4-inch phone, "It doesn't sink in the hand, but the display content is a lot more"; the camera was redesigned to make the framing more flexible when shooting homework and questions. "It's not about changing for the sake of change, it's just about making it easy for the child to use." Wu Yusheng added that every step, from the dictionary pen to the scanning learning machine, is "pushed by the needs of the child".
2. "Sweep and shoot learning machine": Let parents understand it at a glance, and children will understand it as soon as they use it
When naming the product, the team thought of dozens of plans. At first, they wanted to return to the dictionary pen series, after all, it was an iterative upgrade; later, they wanted to call it "scanning machine" and "shooting machine" to highlight the new camera function; but they always felt "not clear enough" - parents may ask when they get it: "What the hell is this for?"
In the end, they decided to go back to simplicity: "Sweep the learning machine." "Although the name is longer, parents understand it as soon as they hear it: it can be swept and photographed, and it is for children to learn." Wu Yusheng said that they found more than a dozen parents to test, and everyone thought "although it is long, it is clear." One parent joked: "There is no need to explain, just look at the name to know how to use it, that's enough."
And in the name of "K6", there are more small thoughts. "K" is the key (key), hoping that it can help children open the door of knowledge; it is knowledge (knowledge), carrying the core of learning; it is knife (knife), making children's learning tools; it is also kid (child), specially designed for children, and also implicitly fits the learning stage from K9 to K12. "6" is derived from "one top six": it is not only a widescreen full-screen dictionary pen, but also a better listening and speaking treasure, a portable learning machine, an audio reader, an offline translator, or a student camera.
"These'six 'are not hard to come by." Wu Yusheng stressed that when they visited many families, they found that the children's desks were often piled up with a pile of equipment: learning machines, dictionary pens, repeater machines... "But these devices are in each section, and the data is not available. When the child scans the new words with the dictionary pen, when he hears and hears the treasure learning text, he has to find that lesson again, which is too troublesome."
The core of K6 is "data connection": the new words scanned by the child will be automatically linked to the text, and the questions after learning the text will be automatically linked to the listening text of Tingbao. They are not just six isolated devices, but have learning data exchange with each other.
3. Technological breakthroughs: keep "trouble" to yourself and "smoothness" to children
"High-speed boot" is a technology that the team has spent more than a year and invested nearly 10 million yuan to conquer. Liu Qingsheng remembers that in the past, when children looked up words, they had to wait for the device to turn on first. "After more than ten seconds, the child's reading idea may be broken." Now, when the K6 is turned off, it can get the result at a glance, and it can be done as quickly as possible. "It's like when a child is thirsty, the speed of handing water is faster than when he shouts'thirsty '."
Behind this is an unconventional technical design. The general device boot is "serial": start the chip first, then load the system, and finally run the application; the dictionary pen is "parallel": one chip core is responsible for booting, the other handles scanning and identification at the same time, and the two processes go synchronously. "Just adjusting the order of system loading, the engineers stayed up countless nights." Liu Qingsheng said that they even reconstructed the boot process of the linux system, "just so that the child can pick it up and use it." (The high-speed boot function K6 will be available later.)
The upgrade of the scanning function also hides ingenuity. In the past, the dictionary pen could only scan one line, and children had to scan a composition more than a dozen times, and it was easy to miss words. Now the scanning width of the K6 can cover more than five or six lines of text. With algorithm optimization, even the words on color textbooks and picture books can be accurately identified. "Most of the industry uses grey release cameras, and color-based color words are easy to'look confused '; we use color cameras, which are like equipping the device with full-color recognition eyes."
To address the "fisheye effect" of wide-format scanning - the distortion of marginal text - the team added a special distortion correction algorithm to "ensure that every word is recognized accurately," Mr. Wu explained.
There is also a "what you see is what you get" scanning design. In the past, the dictionary pen was positioned by a small window, and children often "scan by feeling", which was easy to be biased. Now the K6 is made into a full screen, and the scan button is pressed, and the area to be scanned is directly displayed on the screen. For this design, the team removed the original window and replaced it with a pressure bar sensor. "The seemingly simple change is backed by hundreds of simulation tests of how the child will hold and how the eyes will see."
4, do not do "problem magnifying glass", only do "problem solver"
"We make products to help children solve problems, not to create problems to defeat children." Wu Yusheng's words broke the core of the alpha coefficient egg's love for children.
The team has seen too many "counterexamples": some products promote "there are 1 billion questions in the question bank", but the child can't finish 1 billion questions in his life; some scan questions directly give answers, which seems to save time, but makes the child lose the opportunity to think. The alpha coefficient egg insists on "scanning questions to give steps, not giving answers" from the beginning, even if there are parents who give opinions and do not compromise. "It's like teaching a child to ride a bicycle, you can't directly help him pedal, you have to let him find his own balance."
This insistence is reflected in the details. For example, when a child asks "how to write beautiful characters", K6 will not directly give strokes, but first list the homophones such as "beautiful beauty" and "every day", and let the child choose the right one before creating the animation stroke order. "Because the child may only be able to pronounce, not necessarily distinguish the homophones." Wu Yusheng said that the team has spent a lot of energy on age-division design: first-grade children use animation to learn stroke order, high school students use text to parse the root, "what stage to give what content is really helping the child."
The most annoying "secondary fee" for parents, K6 has also been directly "cut". "How much is it when you buy it, the follow-up function upgrades and content updates are all free." Wu Yusheng explained that during the research, he found that too many parents were "buying equipment at a low price, opening a membership at a high price" routine, "We don't want to do a one-shot deal, we want parents to consume it clearly". Even the more than 1,000 must-read books required by the new curriculum standard, the team also bought the copyright and built it in, "no need for children to spend money to buy it, fragmented time can be read and listened to at any time".
5. Longevism: Doing business like raising children
"There is no rush to make children's education products." This is a sentence that Liu Qingsheng and Wu Yusheng have repeatedly emphasized. Taoyun Technology has been established for ten years. From the original story machine to the current sweeping learning machine, it has not followed the trend and only focused on one goal: "Let children learn happily, and let parents worry less."
The team has an iron rule: before any function is launched, you must ask two questions - "If it is my child, am I willing to use it for her?" "Can my child use it smoothly?" The R & D team of K6 has nearly 100 people, and the "scanning accuracy" test alone uses tens of thousands of pages of textbooks and test papers, "I am afraid that the child will not be able to recognize a rare word and affect the learning mood."
In the face of industry competition, they have their own insistence. "It doesn't matter if others copy our functions, as long as it helps children." Wu Yusheng said that the real competitiveness is not "who uses the new technology first", but "who can use the technology to understand children better." For example, large model technology, many peers directly use it to generate answers, but alpha coefficient eggs place "restrictions" on it: you can only call the content of the authoritative knowledge base, and you can't play it freely. "I'm afraid that AI will mislead children by talking nonsense."
"We don't want to do Internet celebrity products, and the fire will disappear in a few months," Liu Qingsheng said. The team hopes that K6 can be like a durable book, accompanying children from elementary school to junior high school. "Education is never a sprint, but a long-distance run. We are willing to run slowly and run solidly."
From the dictionary pen to the scanning learning machine, every step of the α coefficient egg is solid. Because they know that what they hold in their hands is not just a device, but also the care and trust of countless parents, and their children's awareness and curiosity about the world.
