Code and Load STEM Programmable Robot Rover

My 6 (now 7 year old) took a coding class at our local Apple store. She loved it. So for her 7th Birthday we bought her this . I home-school her so she works with it about at least once a week. She gets better and it every time. It is building great necessary skills that will enable her to go far in life! It’s fun and doesn’t feel like “school” when she is coding her robot through the path around our house. My husband creates patches using blue painters tape on our hardwood floor throughout the house.

Have also found it great with adding and estimating for the time, we try to set it all to the same speed then have her figure out how many seconds it will take to go the different lengths.

I have been a fan of it since they first began making remote controlled spheres. The ability to not only control them remotely, but to program them through a variety of apps and interfaces has made them invaluable to educators interested in providing STEM experiences for their students. The RVR is their latest offering, and once again they've created something that is fun, educational, and ridiculously hackable.

The RVR is a very different form factor than their previous models. I'll admit that I was worried about the treads getting clogged up, especially considering we have a dog who sheds in the house. However, when we unboxed it and fired it up, we found that it didn't seem to be bothered by dirt, by dust, or by pet hair. In fact, it rolled right over all sorts of obstacles that we put in the way. Out of the box, it is extremely responsive, and easily controllable through the app. We found the RVR even easier to control than previous bots due to how easy it is to identify a 'front' and 'back'. Even young children can take the RVR out of the box and have a great time controlling it.

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 it is shaken like a snow globe. She has built obstacle courses on the living room floor and programmed it 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 it 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.

These days, learning never ends. Even for adults. This robotic ball is an excellent way for us to learn what wasn't available when we were kids. The best thing about the it is that it makes learning "Fun" and "Exciting".

From the second it arrived on my door step I was excited to see what it had placed in its latest product. I opened the package and found it, charging cable, dock, compass/clock, and of course stickers! I then downloaded the EDU app to play around with the new LED Matrix that is fully programmable and it allowed me to create emojis and all sorts of fun creations. I then played around with the block based programming and created a fun program for BOLT to follow. I also downloaded the Play app and it allows you to play mini games, change LED matrix colors, and drive. There is so much you can do with it!