Code Your Own Galaxy

Samsung wanted to connect with a younger Gen Alpha audience – a digitally-native audience that gets their first phone by 10 and spends an average of at least 3 hours on screens a day. Samsung wanted to empower this future generation with an innovative digital experience that would turn their screen time into time well spent.

Introducing Code Your Own Galaxy

As the company that puts the Galaxy in the palm of your hand, why not put the power to Code Your Own Galaxy in the palm of the next generation’s hands. We created an experiential retail experience, learn-to-code app and technology workshop with Code Ninjas coding schools and Samsung technology called Galaxy Builders, powered by the Galaxy Tab S8 and Galaxy S23 Ultra.

The Galaxy Builders experience featured a custom Unity-powered app that allowed kids aged 5-14 of any skill level to learn about the fundamentals of coding and logic while coding their own unique 1-of-1 corner of the Galaxy.

Students were able to design their Galaxy-on-Galaxy devices while the app wrote and edited live code, while more advanced classes and students created theirs from scratch using scratch! a block-system coding experience that leveraged repeaters, if statements, repeaters, variables, and connected their thousands of Galaxies live - into one collective, coded universe.

Kits went out to Samsung stores and Code Ninjas schools with self-serve demo kiosks, virtual-reality cardboard headsets, and programmable NFC access cards so kids could tap their take-home kit to their mobile device to find their corner of the Galaxy and explore it in 360 whenever they wanted.

The unique and innovative experiential retail activation drew big interest, booking up all classes in Code Ninjas locations and Samsung stores before the retail experience program even launched. Leading to a majority-earned 34 million impressions, over 60,000 device demos (so far), and over 10,000 unique Galaxies generated by kids.

An interactive digital program built in only 4 weeks that ran for 4 weeks became Code Ninjas’ most innovative and creative class to date in their schools and out in the field. Now the devices and app will continue to be used by the schools for years to come.

The National Post said it best as we set out “to empower the next generation of talent by teaching them key digital skillsets and help develop their problem solving, critical thinking and teamwork skillsets through the immersive workshops” and the results were interstellar 🪐🚀📱.