BT’s Code a Cake Enlists Baking Robots to Teach Digital Skills

British multinational telecommunications company BT Group and independent global digital creative agency AnalogFolk have today announced the launch of ‘Code a Cake’, an experience that gives parents and children control of a fantastical bakery staffed by robots, and introduces both to the simple concepts of coding. 

BT launched their new ‘Beyond Limits’ brand platform at the end of last year, with the ambition of reflecting the changing nature of BT and helping consumers once again recognise the brand as a fundamental part of the fabric of the nation. One of the initiatives of this new positioning is BT’s commitment to teach digital skills to 10 million people through its ‘Skills for Tomorrow’ programme. 

Code a Cake was conceived and built by AnalogFolk to help drive awareness of the brand ambition with a broad audience. It also ‘walks the walk’, delivering digital skills through the experience itself, by way of a coding tutorial unlike any other. Instead of getting caught up in an overly techy world, Code a Cake taps into the UK’s love of homely shows like Bake Off – where part of the fun is seeing culinary experiments go wrong. 

The digital experience takes the sometimes mysterious and intimidating word of coding, and makes it accessible through the metaphor of baking a cake. Parents and children play with code that relates to ingredients and recipe steps, and then enjoy the often messy results, as robots follow the programmed instructions. A real physical kitchen, with five custom-built working robots, was created to help young and old connect their choices of code to real world effects, but without any of the fear of making mistakes. 

Jo Trimmings, group brand marketing manager for BT, said: “Code a Cake is a great demonstration of our ambition to provide essential digital skills and training to 10 million people in the UK. At a time when education at home couldn’t be more important, we hope this can provide a fun and constructive activity that both adults and kids can benefit from.” 

Anna-Louise Gladwell, managing director, AnalogFolk, said: “Creating experiences where creativity, culture and technology comes together is something we are incredibly passionate about. Moreover it’s our mission to use digital to make the analog world better, and that’s brought to life perfectly in this work. It’s a great way to get parents and children working and playing together, especially at this unusual and surprising time. We’re hugely proud of the creativity and craft in this project. It’s testament to the amazing talent of our team and the innovative spirit at BT.” 

To try the experience and get involved here. 

The campaign launches on April 2nd, and will run until early May. It was originally designed to be a fun and educational activity that coincided with the start of the school easter holidays, but now finds even greater relevance with millions of parents and kids stuck at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The experience is supported by an ad campaign, also created by AnalogFolk, and appearing on Facebook, Instagram and BT Digital Out of Home screens. 

How it works: On accessing the robot bakery website, adults and kids will go through three parts of the kitchen, each that teaches them one of the basic principles of code – sequencing, variables and repetition. At each stage, you arrange simple, colourful blocks of code, then see the playful robots respond and carry out baking tasks. You can see the difference your choices make in a physical, tangible environment – without fear of making mistakes. You also get to choose the theme for your cake, from Llama Piñata, to outer space, to robots (of course). At the end, your cake is personalised with your name, so you can share it on social media. You can even download the recipe to bake your cake in real life.