Hot Wheels id Adds Coding Elements via Apple Swift

Mattel‘s Hot Wheels id platform is expanding to add coding elements.

The new Hot Wheels id Swift Playground experience is available exclusively in the Apple Swift Playgrounds App on iPad. The experience pairs Apple’s easy-to-learn digital programming language for app coding with the physical Hot Wheels id cars and Race Portal from Mattel to open up “a new virtual world to learn coding concepts and the potential of augmented reality.”

An example of the coding elements featured in Hot Wheels id Swift Playground.

In Hot Wheels id Swift Playground, kids will advance the story through three chapters spanning three worlds — Island, Desert, and City — as they solve puzzles to master coding basics and accept challenges that lead to more advanced skills. The story follows a stolen Hot Wheels id car that can only be recovered by mastering basic Swift programming skills. The game leverages augmented reality (AR) for kids to reveal and access hidden tokens and passwords.

The Swift Playgrounds app can be downloaded here.

About the author

James Zahn

James Zahn, AKA The Rock Father, is Editor-in-Chief of The Toy Book, a Senior Editor at The Toy Insider and The Pop Insider, and Editor of The Toy Report, The Toy Book‘s weekly industry newsletter. As a pop culture and toy industry expert, Zahn has appeared as a panelist and guest at events including Comic-Con International: San Diego (SDCC) Wizard World Chicago, and the ASTRA Marketplace & Academy. Zahn has more than 30 years of experience in the entertainment, retail, and publishing industries, and is frequently called upon to offer expert commentary for publications such as Forbes, Marketwatch, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, Reuters, the Washington Post, and more. James has appeared on History Channel’s Modern Marvels, was interviewed by Larry King and Anderson Cooper, and has been seen on Yahoo! Finance, CNN, CNBC, FOX Business, NBC, ABC, CBS, WGN, The CW, and more. Zahn joined the Adventure Media & Events family in 2016, initially serving as a member of the Parent Advisory Board after penning articles for the Netflix Stream Team, Fandango Family, PBS KIDS, Sprout Parents (now Universal Kids), PopSugar, and Chicago Parent. He eventually joined the company full time as a Senior Editor and moved up the ranks to Deputy Editor and Editor-in-Chief.