From dictionary pen to scanning and photographing learning machine: The "growth" path of Alpha Egg K6

In the current highly competitive market of educational intelligent hardware, the "Sweep-and-Shoot Learning Machine K6" launched by Alpha Egg has attracted attention with its unique positioning. At the beginning of the new semester this fall, Liu Qingsheng, the chairman of Taoyun Technology, and Wu Yusheng, the president, were interviewed by the media, detailing the whole process from the conception to the launch of this product. Their words were filled with careful observation of children's learning needs and profound understanding of the essence of education.

"Grow Naturally" Along with Children's Needs

"Developing a product is like raising a child. You have to make adjustments as it grows," Liu Qingsheng described the iterative process of Alpha Egg's products. Initially, the team only wanted to solve a simple problem: to enable children to look up words without carrying 20 reference books. So, the first-generation dictionary pen was born, which packed the content of 20 reference books into a single pen. When a child looked up a word, they could see explanations from different reference books at the same time. "We thought it was convenient enough at that time," Liu Qingsheng said.

However, when they really got into the children's learning scenarios, they found it was "not enough." When children were learning English, they knew the words but didn't understand the grammar; when learning Chinese characters, they wanted to know "why the character is written like this"; when doing math problems, they wanted to know the step-by-step solutions after scanning the questions. "It's like giving a child a key. He not only wants to open the door but also wants to know how the room behind the door is arranged," Liu Qingsheng said. So, the team began to add functions to the dictionary pen, such as explaining grammar, analyzing the evolution of Chinese characters, and breaking down problem-solving steps, turning it from a "lookup tool" into a "teaching method."

In the past two years, the sales volume of the dictionary pen ranked first in the industry, but new problems emerged. Liu Qingsheng found that when children wanted to use it for more things, they were always stuck by the "hardware bottleneck." The screen was narrow and long, like the early pen-shaped design, making it difficult to display the steps of a math problem. When scanning a large area of content, they had to scan back and forth several times, and it was easy to miss words. "The fourth-generation D1 Pro added a camera, but the lens was too narrow, making it still inconvenient to take pictures of questions. It was like using a small cup to catch rain; it could never be filled," Liu Qingsheng said.

So, the team decided to "enlarge the cup." They widened the scanning width from a single line to covering an entire paragraph of text. The screen was expanded to a 4.98-inch high-definition Retina screen, about the size of an early 4-inch iPhone. "It's not heavy in the hand, but it can display much more content," Liu Qingsheng said. The camera was redesigned, making it more flexible to frame when taking pictures of homework or questions. "We didn't make changes for the sake of change. We just wanted to make it easier for children to use," Wu Yusheng added. From the dictionary pen to the sweep-and-shoot learning machine, every step was "pushed by the children's needs."

"Sweep-and-Shoot Learning Machine": Easy for Parents to Understand and Children to Use

When naming the product, the team came up with dozens of ideas. At first, they wanted to include it in the dictionary pen series since it was an iterative upgrade. Later, they considered names like "Sweep Learning Machine" or "Shoot Learning Machine" to highlight the new photo-taking function. But they always felt it was "not clear enough." Parents might ask when they got it: "What on earth is this for?"

Finally, they decided to keep it simple: "Sweep-and-Shoot Learning Machine." "Although the name is a bit long, parents will understand as soon as they hear it: it can sweep, it can shoot, and it's for children to learn," Wu Yusheng said. They tested it with more than a dozen parents, and they all thought it was "clear, though long." A parent joked: "No need for an explanation. Just by looking at the name, you know how to use it. That's enough."

The name "K6" hides more careful considerations. "K" stands for key, hoping it can help children open the door to knowledge; it's also knowledge, carrying the core of learning; it's like a knife, being a sharp tool for children's learning; and it's also kid, designed specifically for children, and it also implies the learning stages from K9 to K12. "6" comes from "one device replaces six." It is both a wide-screen and full-screen dictionary pen, a better listening and speaking device, a portable learning machine, an audio reader, an offline translator, and a student camera.

"These 'six devices' are not just randomly put together," Wu Yusheng emphasized. When they visited many families, they found that children often had a pile of devices on their desks: learning machines, dictionary pens, tape recorders, etc. "But these devices each handle a different aspect, and the data is not connected. When a child scans a new character with a dictionary pen and then switches to the listening and speaking device to learn a text, they have to find that text again. It's too troublesome." The core of K6 is "data integration." The new characters scanned by the child will be automatically associated with the text. The questions after learning the text will be automatically associated with the listening function of the listening and speaking device. They are not six isolated devices but have interlinked learning data.

Technological Breakthrough: Take the "Troubles" Ourselves and Give "Smoothness" to Children

The "high-speed startup" is a technology that the team spent more than a year and nearly ten million yuan to overcome. Liu Qingsheng remembered that in the past, when children wanted to look up a word, they had to wait for the device to start up first. "In those ten seconds, the child's reading train of thought might be interrupted." Now, K6 can give results immediately when scanned even in the off state, achieving the fastest startup. "It's like when a child is thirsty, you have to hand over the water faster than they say 'thirsty,'" Liu Qingsheng said.

Behind this is an unconventional technological design. Generally, the startup of a device is "serial": first start the chip, then load the system, and finally run the application. But the dictionary pen is "parallel": one chip core is responsible for starting up, while the other processes scanning and recognition at the same time. "Engineers stayed up countless nights just to adjust the system loading sequence," Liu Qingsheng said. They even reconstructed the startup process of the Linux system, "just to make it ready for children to use as soon as they pick it up." (The high-speed startup function of K6 will be launched later.)

The upgrade of the scanning function also has some clever ideas. The previous dictionary pen could only scan one line. A child had to scan a composition more than ten times, and it was easy to miss words. Now, the scanning width of K6 can cover more than five or six lines of text. With algorithm optimization, it can accurately recognize words even in color textbooks and picture books. "Most in the industry use grayscale cameras, and it's easy to 'confuse' words on a colored background. We use a color camera, like giving the device eyes with full-color recognition," Wu Yusheng explained. To solve the "fisheye effect" (distortion of edge words) in wide-width scanning, the team added a special distortion correction algorithm, "ensuring that every word is recognized accurately."

There is also the "what you see is what you get" scanning design. The previous dictionary pen used a small viewfinder for positioning, and children often scanned "by feeling" and were prone to deviation. Now, K6 has a full-screen design. When you press the scanning button, the area to be scanned is directly displayed on the screen. For this design, the team removed the original viewfinder and used a pressure bar sensor instead. "It seems like a simple change, but behind it are hundreds of times of simulation tests of 'how children will hold it and how they will look at it,'" Wu Yusheng said.

Don't Be a "Problem Magnifier," Be a "Problem Solver"

"When we develop products, we aim to help children solve problems, not create problems to defeat them," Wu Yusheng's words reveal the core of Alpha Egg's love for children.

The team has seen too many "counterexamples." Some products claim to have "one billion questions in the question bank," but a child can never finish one billion questions in a lifetime. Some scan questions and directly give answers, seemingly saving time but actually depriving children of the opportunity to think. Alpha Egg has always adhered to the principle of "giving steps instead of answers when scanning questions" and has not compromised even when some parents raised objections. "It's like teaching a child to ride a bike. You can't pedal for them directly. You have to let them find their balance on their own," Liu Qingsheng said.

This persistence is reflected in the details. For example, when a child asks "how to write a Chinese character," K6 won't directly show the strokes. Instead, it first lists homophones like "beautiful" or "every day" and then shows the animated stroke order after the child makes the correct choice. "Because a child may only know the pronunciation but not necessarily distinguish homophones," Wu Yusheng said. The team spent a lot of effort on age-specific design: first-grade children learn stroke order through animations, while high school students learn word roots through text explanations. "Giving the right content at the right stage is really helping children."

The "secondary charging" that parents hate the most has also been directly "eliminated" in K6. "The price you pay when buying it is all you need. All subsequent function upgrades and content updates are free," Wu Yusheng explained. During the research, they found that too many parents were trapped by the "low-price device, high-price membership" routine. "We don't want to make a one-time deal. We just want parents to consume clearly." Even more than a thousand required reading books stipulated by the new curriculum standards have been purchased with copyright and built into the device. "Children don't need to spend more money to buy them. They can read and listen to them at any time during their fragmented time."

Long-Termism: Run the Business Like Raising a Child

"When developing children's educational products, you can't rush," is a statement that Liu Qingsheng and Wu Yusheng repeatedly emphasized. Taoyun Technology has been established for ten years. From the initial storyteller to the current sweep-and-shoot learning machine, it has never chased after trends but has only focused on one goal: "to make children learn happily and parents worry less."

The team has an ironclad rule: before any function is launched, they have to ask two questions: "If it were my own child, would I be willing to let her use it?" and "Can my child use it smoothly?" The R & D team of K6 has nearly a hundred people. They used tens of thousands of pages of textbooks and test papers just to test the "scanning accuracy." "We're afraid that a child might scan a rare character that can't be recognized, which would affect their learning mood."

In the face of industry competition, they have their own persistence. "It doesn't matter if others copy our functions as long as it helps children," Wu Yusheng said. The real competitiveness lies not in "who uses new technologies first" but in "who can use technologies to better understand children." For example, in the use of large model technology, many peers directly use it to generate answers, but Alpha Egg has added "restrictions" to it: it can only call on content from authoritative knowledge bases and cannot make free associations. "We're afraid that AI might'make nonsense' and mislead children."

"We don't want to create a trendy product that will disappear after a few months," Liu Qingsheng said. The team hopes that K6 can be like a well-written book, accompanying children from primary school to junior high school. "Education has never been a sprint but a long-distance race. We're willing to run slowly and steadily."

From the dictionary pen to the sweep-and-shoot learning machine, every step of Alpha Egg has been taken steadily. Because they know that what they hold in their hands is not just a device but also the love and trust of countless parents and the children's curiosity and exploration of the world.