After $2M In Pre-Orders, Osmo Starts Shipping Its Hardware-Based iPad Game For Kids, Rolls Out Customization Features

Osmo, the gaming device from former Googlers that combines real world play and the iPad, is now shipping after receiving $2 million in pre-orders, including those from over 2,000 schools. The company is also announcing this morning a new platform that will allow anyone to design games for Osmo. At launch, this lets parents, teachers, and others customize Osmo’s word game with their own content.The company, founded in February 2013, was created by Pramod Sharma, who previously helped build Google’s book-scanning machine, and Jérôme Scholler, who had worked on Chrome for Android while at Google. Both men, parents themselves, became interested in how they could turn the tablets their children were addicted to into better, more engaging platforms for learning.The end result is Osmo, an iPad tablet game kit that involves a reflective camera that snaps on the top of the iPad, allowing the Osmo app to see the shapes and other objects placed in front of it. Children place the iPad in the provided stand and then choose from physical games, like “Tangram,” where you move colorful wooden puzzle pieces to match a picture on the screen, or “Words,” where you slide letter tiles around to guess the word.