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Here's where you'll find all the latest news about technology for children. We love to follow cool new inventions on Kickstarter and we hunt out all the latest announcements about tech toys and gadgets for the coming Christmas holidays. You'll also get our take on children's technology stories in the media.

REVIEWS$show=/search/label/review

Our kids technology product reviews are intended to help you work out whether a toy, gadget or kit is a good fit for your child or family. There's lots of cool stuff available, but is it the right choice for the child or teenager that you are buying for? We'll help you make the right choices and get the best value for money.

GIFT GUIDES$show=/search/label/gift%20guide

Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends assemble. We create gift lists to help you make good choices for kids technology which helps them develop the right skills for the future. We research the best in Coding Toys and Games, Making / Craft Tools and Kits, STEM/STEAM related gifts, Programmable Robots, Electronics Kits and Gadgets for Tech Age Kids and Teens.

PROJECTS$show=/search/label/project

Get crafty with technology. Here we'll post all our ideas and projects using technology to get creative and making with kids. You'll find anything from making a lemon battery to a glow-in-the-dark Minecraft sword. Our projects are tried and tested on our own kids or at events we run, so we are sure you can have a go at home with your kids. Some of our projects use specific tech gadgets which we provide links for you to purchase.

STEM$show=/search/label/stem

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In recent years there is an increased focus in these areas of study. We like to include Art and Design too, so we often talk about STEAM (A stands for Art). At Tech Age Kids we believe Coding is a new literacy and children need to understand how technology works, practice making skills and grow in their curiosity to make a better future for us all.

CODING$show=/search/label/coding

Coding is increasingly being recognised as an important skill for children to learn. Some will learn to code at school or at a coding club, but it's brilliant if they get support at home too.

ELECTRONICS$show=/search/label/electronics

We think it's really important for kids to get hands-on with electronics and learn how to make circuits and write code to control hardware. Younger kids can start with conductive playdough. For kids who like to combine craft and tech, littleBits are fab. And we love SAM Labs wireless electronics components for making it easy for kids to make Internet of Things inventions. Lots of electronics kits for kids have support for the Arduino microprocessor environment. The DuinoKit Jr is one of our favourites. Arduino is a fab skill for older kids and teens to develop.

ROBOTICS$show=/search/label/robotics

We love robots at Tech Age Kids, especially programmable ones. We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them. Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available. Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots.

MAKING AND CRAFT$show=/search/label/making

We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun. The Maker Community uses the term 'making' as a broad term to include all sorts of artisan skills or craft activities. Being able to make things can lead to life-long hobbies or even careers. It's a great feeling to be able to take a project from an idea in your head to a real object that does something. We're particularly interested to explore products that combine maker skills with tech skills such as electronics but others focus purely on the physical making skills that are still important to modern making.

The New Meccanoid G15 Robot - A First Impressions Review

We are now the proud owners of a Meccanoid G15 house robot. We've got lots of plans for the little guy and I'll be writing more about him in future, but for now here are our first impressions.

Meccanoid is a buildable robot from Erector / Meccano, yes the guys who make the metal construction sets. The G15 is the smaller version of the robot, but it's still really big at around 2 feet tall (61cm), the larger G15 KS is around 4 feet tall!

Meccanoid will be the 'big present' under the tree for lots of kids this Christmas. Let's take a look at what you can expect.

Meccanoid is intended for children age 10+ to build themselves. Younger kids will enjoy the robot but will need help with the build.

Update: The new Meccanoid 2.0 robots are now available for 2016. These robots have an upgraded more powerful Mecca brain and improvements to features. The batteries used are now D rather than C (many users reported battery issues with the smaller robot, these were often resolved by customer support, but hopefully we'll see fewer issues with the new version.)

Update: Behavior builder drag and drop coding has replaced motion capture in the app. This means you can now program Meccanoid.



The Box


First of all, Meccanoid looks like an impressive gift. The box is big and weighty. Not the most important factor, but it does add to the wow factor. 

The Build


Meccanoid is very much a robot that you build. If you want a ready built robot then try something like Miposaur. This is a Meccano robot, building it is a big part of the experience. 

Meccanoid is put together using standard Meccano nuts and bolts.  The required tools are included. 

Compared to regular Meccano the build is actually fairly straightforward. The pieces are sturdy polycarbonate rather than metal and this means that they can have indentations where the nuts go, this makes the process of connecting nuts and bolts fairly easy. The nuts stay put while you turn the bolts. 

The build time is long though, expect it to take several hours. You can speed things up by having more than one person working on the build, there are plenty of sections that can be built in parallel. 

My eight year old was capable of building the robot. More capable than me in many cases! But he wouldn't have had the staying power to built the whole thing. 

There weren't many spare nuts and bolts left at the end. More would have been appreciated as we're bound to lose a few over time and also to allow us to attach other things. You can use standard Meccano pieces though. 

The LEDs for the eyes seem oddly placed, they are quite far back and a lot of the light doesn't make it to the eyes. It looks like they can be repositioned though and we can always 3D print a part to keep the light in. 

Turning Meccanoid On


We connected up Meccanoid according to the instructions. Well not quite according to the instructions as the motor cables seemed to be drawn upside down in the instructions that we have. There wasn't any choice in how to actually connect them though so we did what worked. 

We turned Meccanoid on and it ran through a series of tests requesting confirmation that each action had working. Everything worked first time. 

I was very glad about this after several hours of assembly!

Playtime


When you turn Meccanoid on it runs through an introductory tutorial that explains some of the features. This works really well for getting started. My kids aged 8 and 6 were soon getting Meccanoid to tell (bad) jokes, leading him round the room by the hand and teaching him new routines using LIM. 

LIM is learned intelligent motion, basically you put Meccanoid into a record mode where it reads motion from the servos in the arms and can then play back the motion. This is really effective and fun. 

The Walk with Me function where you guide Meccanoid by his arm was a big hit with my 7 year old. Shaking hands and doing a high five work really well - Meccanoid actually senses your movement via the servos. 

Meccanoid responds to voice commands. We had trouble with some commands initially but after a firmware update via USB this improved but still requires several attempts sometimes. I felt like Meccanoid was training me to say the words in the right way. Our accents may be a contributing factor. Voice commands that we created ourselves worked pretty well. 

Meccanoid's eye colour is used very effectively to signal the mode he's in so it's easy to see what to do next. 

We had to turn the volume up to maximum to hear the voice above the sound of the servos.



Meccanoid G15 vs 2.0 Update


There are new Meccanoid 2.0 models available for 2016. There's a small version which replaces the G15 and a larger one that replaces the G15KS.

The new robots have an improved Mecca Brain, a different colour scheme and general improvements rather than radical changes. Note that the 2.0 smaller Meccanoid takes D batteries rather than C batteries. The larger version has a rechargeable battery (which is a very useful feature.)

We're really pleased that the new Behavior Builder coding feature is available for the older G15 Meccanoids as well as the new ones. This means that it may be worth picking up an older model if you find one discounted to a bargain price.



Conclusion

Clearly there's lots more to explore. We haven't tried the Motion Capture (now superceded by behaviour builder) or Ragdoll animation modes which require an app. We're also looking forward to Meccano releasing specs for 3D printable parts so we can customize the robot. And we're looking forward to being able to properly program Meccanoid once the open source APIs are available. And you can design your own robots using the kit too. 

But so far, for a £169 / $179 robot we're pretty impressed. There's a lot of good technology in here. The LIM technology works really well for recording movement of the arms. 

The robot feels solid though I'm going to keep tightening the bolts as I imagine they will work loose over time. 

Next: Meccanoid Behavior Builder (new for 2016)



24 days of Scratch coding book cover and cute penguin
Name

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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children: The New Meccanoid G15 Robot - A First Impressions Review
The New Meccanoid G15 Robot - A First Impressions Review
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