Programmable RoboBall

We were excited to add this new robot to the family. The matrix is awesome and the auto-aiming feature is super cool. I planned to make the kiddo wait until Christmas to play with it, but that rarely works. The sooner she learns to code, the more likely mom can likely retire at a reasonable age.

I got this for Christmas for my daughter who is 12 and is just starting to show an interest in coding. I was afraid it would be too simplistic for her, or not really fun, but she really loves it! The block code it primarily uses is simple. However, she is challenging herself to come up with different programs, and that keeps her busy. She has fun programming moving images with the lights. She just made a little fox with the LED lights that winks and snowflakes that fall when the Bolt is shaken like a snow globe. She has built obstacle courses on the living room floor and programmed the Bolt to navigate them. She got the Bolt to follow a path from her room to her brother's, flash, and then display written messages using the LED display. Since the Bolt can also be programmed using JavaScript, we hope she will be able to continue to learn with this toy, even after the novelty of making the simple block programs wears off.

I bought this for my class, I teach sixth grade math and robotics to sixth and seventh graders. Im so happy with this purchase. I do recommend getting some kind of cover for it or keeping it off of hard flooring. The problem is they get scratched pretty easy and in a classroom setting the poor thing looks like its been abused. I did find a way around this by creating my own mazes. The kids get great joy watching and helping me create the maze and it is a huge skill to be able to program that Sphero to run the maze. I usually start my students off with using their finger to drive it, but then I move them to programming it to run the maze. Its amazing how quickly they learn how to program. Some of my mazes are a little difficult and I know they get a little frustrated but they will work until they figure it out. I think this is probably one of the best things that I have purchased for my robotics class

My daughter loves her coding class with her school, even though the subject matter has its challenges (coding alone) she loves the program with sphero to keep her on toes and the Bolt associated with it. I am amazed at how shes getting creative with it. Shes very happy.

This was a Christmas gift for my kids. My only issue is that sometimes it takes a few times to get the Bolt to connect to the app. Other than the connecting issues, they are both having a lot of fun with them. They haven't started programming them yet. They have been rolling them around the house and changing the LCD colors.

Once we go back to Homeschooling, I will incorporate coding into our lessons.