What is Tākaro?

Tākaro is a game to teach young people to learn coding concepts and systems thinking through a hands-on, reactive environment.



Computers cannot think for themselves, and so they must be told what to do by programs. A program is specified as “a series of coded software instructions to control the operation of a computer, or other machine”. The code which the programmes are written in can be given to the computer with several different languages, with each language having different uses.



Additionally, there are “low-level” and “high-level” languages; with low-level, or machine code, being more difficult, but with more control over the computer as they speak directly to the computer; and with high-level, or compiled code, being simpler, but with slightly less control over the computer as they require a dictionary, of sorts, called a compiler to speak to the computer. When the computer is given this code, and has translated it, it will carry out the commands, or “execute the code”.



While the different languages have different syntax; how the words, numbers, and symbols go together to form the instructions, they each have basically the same concepts.

Tākaro has been designed to give a basic idea of some of the coding concepts used in high-level computer languages. You'll find more descriptions for the concepts included in the game to help teachers and players alike understand the concepts a little better on the Information page.