NEWS$show=/search/label/news

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.

Robotical's Marty the Walking Robot Review


We've received our Marty the walking robot kit from Robotical. Marty came to life through a successful crowdfunding campaign. We've been following along and got to meet Marty and his inventor at the Bett ed-tech conference earlier this year.

It's crowdfunding Christmas for us at the moment. We've recently received and reviewed Brixo (LEGO-compatible electronics bricks) and KANO's Pixel Kit (a programmable microprocessor with a coloured pixel display and sensors.)

Unboxing

Marty comes in a large printed cardboard box which opens out to create a football (soccer) pitch. Neat.



Assembly

There's an instruction booklet and errata (to fix an issue) included in the kit. But there are more detailed instructions and videos available online in the Marty Build Guide. We'd definitely recommend the more detailed online instructions.



Our Marty has arms which the basic model doesn't.

I built Marty with my 9 year old son. He was keen, but found it hard to do much of the assembly. It's very fiddly and there's not much room to manoeuvre. The suggestion of using tweezers just gave him an additional thing to worry about and resulted in pieces getting dropped. A screwdriver is included in the kit but we'd recommend swapping it for a magnetic one, that helps a lot!

My son was able to put some pieces together but we worked together on most of it. There are lots of identical pieces that must be assembled in specific ways. It's very easy to get things wrong.



I think we made pretty much every mistake possible when building Marty! My spatial awareness is atrocious, left and right don't come naturally and forget thinking about them in terms of a robot that you're looking at face on! Normally my older son helps with builds like this but it's the younger one that has been drawn to Marty which required me doing a lot more thinking!

We could have done with a lot more colour photos showing how things go together. It would have been even better if parts were different so that they couldn't be put together incorrectly. There are so many details that you have to get correct. A couple of times I made a mistake and then fixed it, but didn't realise that it made something else that I had carefully checked incorrect with respect to the new change!

Most people don't have my terrible spatial awareness, but I think Marty could do with more detailed instructions, especially as the box says age 8+. We could have done with a lot more colour photos showing how things go together. It would have been even better if parts were different so that they couldn't be put together incorrectly. There are videos online for some parts, but they weren't the bits we struggled with!

There's one picture in the instructions which appears late on as a 'sanity check', my advice is to look at this picture throughout the built and check everything against it rather than waiting until the end.

All the videos we could find were of the prototype Marty which was demonstrated during the crowdfunding campaign rather than the version that was shipped to backers, this made it hard to check against a correctly built Marty.

Getting Started

We turned Marty on, connected to him and configured the Wifi network. Then we went on to calibration and ... nothing. That was a disappointment after spending an afternoon building the robot. (When I had time to troubleshoot later I found the issue and was able to find and enter the IP address for Marty.) The scan tool has since been updated so this shouldn't be a problem going forward.

As I mentioned, we had made one or two (ahem) mistakes assembling Marty. These were pretty easily spotted and fixed. I got to understand how Marty is put together really well!

We were exhibiting at the Winchester Science Festival throughout the weekend after we built Marty so I only had a bit of time in the evenings to move forward with the troubleshooting.

Once Marty was correctly assembled and calibrated he took his first steps. Awesome!

We've had trouble getting the eyebrows to stay in an upright position after calibration, not sure what's going on there.

Stickers!

Marty came with a sheet of stickers which my 9-year-old very much appreciated. He was very pleased to find a moustache. He insisted on using as many stickers as possible. 

The top hat was not included. My son decided it was a necessary addition (he often wears a top hat himself.) There's nowhere much to attach add-ons to Marty so we used sticky tack. 



Coding

There's a great choice of coding options for Marty, from Scratch for beginners through to Python and Javascript for intermediate roboticists and on to ROS for advanced users.

We really like this approach as it means that kids can progress from the basics through to developing some really advanced skills using the same kit. It also means that multiple family members at different stages can use the same robot.

We've started with the Scratch X extension which worked immediately once we found the block to enter the IP address for our Marty.

We'll spend more time with Marty and try out some projects, but for now, we're very happy to make Marty do a victory wiggle when we press the 'w' key!

We tried playing sounds but could barely hear anything.


We have found that after a while we need to recalibrate Marty to get him back to his starting position.

Build Quality

The injection molded parts are really nice quality and the robot looks fab when it's (finally!) together. We'd seen a prototype Marty so we knew how big it would be, but it is satisfyingly big and chunky.

Marty coped with our incorrect build, problems are detected so that the servos don't get broken.

Adding a Raspberry Pi

You can give Marty access to more processing power by hooking him up to a Raspberry Pi. There's a custom image that you can download with ROS pre-installed. 

Crowdfunding Experience

Marty was a few months delayed from the original expected dates. I know some crowdfunding backers find this frustrating. But it's actually the norm. We take the dates in campaigns with a pinch of salt. (See our guide to backing kid-tech crowdfunding campaigns.)

The communication about progress has been fairly regular and as we got to see Marty in action we felt confident that Sandy and the team would deliver. 

The price that backers paid is significantly less than the retail price which is appreciated (Robotical are working on another production run.) It makes it worthwhile to jump in early rather than just waiting.

Marty in Action

Here's a video of Marty in action and being controlled from ScratchX. We left the fall at the end in as that does seem to happen occasionally when we use Marty for a while.


Verdict

Marty is awesome. A proper walking robot that can be programmed in a variety of languages. We think the instructions for assembly could be made clearer to make the build more accessible to beginners (and the spatially challenged!)

One thing we're a bit disappointed by is that Marty is clearly a boy robot. He's blue and referred to as a 'he' in the documentation. This seems so unnecessary to us. Each company that we talk to about these issues has reasons for choosing blue that they think they can justify, but the end result is so many blue robots. Yes, some girls will still enjoy Marty but couldn't the robot have been white and customisable with stickers (it does come with some stickers)? Note that you can 3D print parts and build your own Marty.

Overall, we're really pleased with Marty and the crowdfunding experience. It's fun to be in at the beginning and follow a project through.




24 days of Scratch coding book cover and cute penguin
Name

2013,13,2023,1,3d printing,5,3DTin,2,accessories,1,activities,1,adafruit,1,advent calendar,2,adventure games,1,amazon,13,amazon fire,2,amazon prime,1,android,6,angry birds,1,animation,6,anki,1,app,19,app toy,4,app toys,8,appcessories,1,apple,1,apps,25,arcbotics,1,architecture,4,arckit,9,arduino,33,art,1,artificial intelligence,5,astronauts,2,astronomy,1,augmented reality,11,automaton,1,awards,1,battle bots,2,battling robots,2,bedtime,1,big kids,103,big tablets,1,bigtrak,1,bike,1,binary,1,birthday,4,bitsbox,1,black friday,2,blockly,1,blogging,1,bloxels,1,bluetooth,2,board games,7,book,2,books,35,boolean box,1,breadboard,2,bricks,1,brixo,1,buying guide,11,camera,4,cameras,1,card game,1,careers,2,catroid,1,celebration,1,cellphone,1,ces,2,chemistry,2,chess,1,christmas,44,circuit cubes,1,circuit playground,8,circuit scribe,10,cleaning,1,climbing,1,code clubs,1,code-a-pillar,1,codebug,1,coder,2,coding,173,cognitive learning,1,communication,1,comparison,1,competition/challenges,9,computational thinking,3,computer,2,computer games,2,computer science,2,computer vision,2,computers,1,computing,1,conductive playdough,2,connected toys,7,construction,40,conversational ai,1,cozmo,1,craft,34,craft cutter,3,creative thinking,1,creativity,3,crochet,1,crowdfunding,120,css,1,cubs,1,curiosity,1,curious chip,1,cyber monday,1,dads,1,data,2,deals,4,dens,2,design,10,design process,1,design thinking,7,digital parenting,2,digital skills,13,disability,1,disney infinity,1,dog tech,1,dolls,2,drawing,2,drones,2,duinokit,1,earth day,1,Easter,4,ebooks,11,eco,1,edblocks,1,edison,5,edtech,1,education,79,egypt,1,electricity,1,electronic pets,2,electronic toys,2,electronics,141,electronics kit,4,electronics kits,1,electtronics,1,elementary,1,elenco,2,energy,1,engineering,17,entertainment,1,ereader,2,ereaders,6,esafety,1,escape the room,1,event,21,ewriter,1,exercise,4,family,12,family tech,2,fathers day,1,Festival of Code,1,fiction,1,fire,1,fitbit,1,fitness,1,fitness tracker,3,flotilla,3,flow charts,1,flutterbye fairy,1,flying,1,force awakens,2,force friday,2,future,2,gadgets,36,games,35,games console,2,games consoles,8,gaming,3,gift guide,55,gifts,12,girls,24,giveaway,4,glow in the dark,1,google,1,grace hopper,1,grove,1,hackaball,2,hacksoton,1,halloween,13,halloween costumes,1,hardware,3,headphones,1,health,1,hexbug,3,hexbug aquabots,1,hexbug project,1,high school,1,history,26,home,1,home education,2,homeschool,4,hot toys,7,hour of code,3,html,4,humanoid,4,ICT,1,in app purchasing,1,indiegogo,13,industry event,9,innotab,5,innotab 3,3,innotab 3s,1,internet access,1,interviews,1,invention,4,ios,3,IoT,4,ipad,7,ipad mini,1,iphone,2,jacquard,1,japan,1,java,1,javascript,5,k'nex,7,k'nex robotics,1,kano,8,keyboard,1,kickstarter,92,kids,3,kindle,7,kindle fire,8,kit,2,kits,5,kodu,1,kubo,1,label printer,1,languages,1,laptop,1,laptops,1,last minute,1,leap motion,1,leapfrog,2,leappad,7,leappad 2,3,leappad ultra,3,leappad2,1,leapreader,1,learning,5,learning resources,5,learning tablet,2,learning tablets,9,leds,2,lego,36,lego boost,1,lego chain reactions,1,lego mindstorms ev3,5,lego power functions,2,lego technic,5,lego wedo,2,let's start coding,1,lights,1,lightseekers,1,little kids,110,littlebits,16,logiblocs,1,logic,3,logical thinking,4,loom,1,machines,1,magnetic,1,make it,2,makeblock,16,makedo,1,maker,6,makey makey,6,making,54,mardles,1,mars,1,mars rover,1,marty,1,math,3,maths,1,mbot,6,mbot ranger,1,me arm,1,meccano,6,meccanoid,5,meccanoid 2.0,1,merge vr,1,mews,1,michael faraday,1,micro:bit,9,microbit,6,microcontroller,5,microscope,1,microsoft,2,middle school,6,miles kelly,1,mindstorms,3,minecraft,21,minecraft mods,1,mixed reality,1,mobile,2,modular electronics,2,monsters university,1,morse code,2,mothers day,4,motion capture,1,motors,2,mover kit,3,movie,1,movies,4,mu,1,mu toys,1,munzee,1,music,10,my first robot,2,national dog day,1,nature,1,new,1,new year,1,news,170,news coding,1,nikola tesla,1,nintendo,2,nintendo switch,3,ohbot,3,ollie,3,on the web,1,opinion,19,origami,1,osmo,4,outdoors,13,ouya,1,ozobot,10,papercraft,3,paperwhite,1,parental controls,2,parenting,34,parrot,1,pc,1,people,8,pet tech,2,pets,3,phone,1,photography,1,photon,1,physics,3,pi day,1,picks,2,pimoroni,1,pinoccio,1,pixel kit,1,pixelart,4,play,2,playstation 4,3,plezmo,1,pocket code,1,pocket money,1,pokemon,4,pokemon go,4,poll,1,pre order,1,pre-teens,2,prehistory,1,preschoolers,42,primary,41,printable,1,products,34,professor einstein,1,programming,15,project,102,projects,12,puzzles,4,python,10,racing,1,raspberry pi,29,reading,12,reivew,1,remote control,1,research,3,resource,34,resources,2,retro,2,review,223,rights,1,robot,11,robot dog,1,robot fish,1,robot wars,3,ROBOTERRA,1,roboticals,1,robotics,32,robots,140,role models,1,role play,1,romo,1,romotive,1,root,1,rover,1,safety,2,sam labs,6,samuel morse,1,sandbox,1,schools,3,science,16,scratch,48,scratchjr,3,screen time,2,screenless,15,screens,1,sensors,5,servos,1,simbrix,7,skills,1,skylanders,3,skylanders superchargers,1,skylanders swap force,1,smart pens,1,smartphone,1,smartwatch,1,snap circuits,2,social media,1,solar power,2,soldering,2,sonic pi,1,sony koov,1,sound,3,space,9,sparki,2,speaker,3,speech sythesis,1,sphero,12,sphero mini,1,spider,2,star wars,6,stars,1,STEAM,1,stem,10,stikbot,1,stop motion,2,stop motion studio,1,storage,1,story,2,strawbees,2,students,1,subscription,5,subscriptions,1,sugru,1,summer,7,swift,1,tablet,3,tablets,23,tangible coding,2,tech,3,tech age,1,tech craft,4,tech is bad,7,tech is good,4,tech toys,21,tech will save us,10,technology,2,technology will save us,3,teens,64,teknikio,3,tekno,1,teksta,1,tenka labs,1,tesla,1,textiles,1,thames & kosmos,2,the extraordinaires,1,tim berners lee,1,tinkercad,1,tinybop,3,toddlers,9,toot-toot,1,top pick,9,touch,1,toy,1,toys,5,travelling,1,TTS,1,TV,1,tween,1,tweens,119,tynker,2,typing,1,ux,1,vehicles,1,videos,3,view-master,1,views,10,virtual reality,8,voice assistants,1,voice recognition,2,vr,4,vtech,8,web,2,websites,1,wifi,1,wii,2,wii u,2,windows 8,1,wonder workshop,9,wowwee,2,writing,7,writing. education,1,xbox one,2,xyzprinting,1,
ltr
item
Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children: Robotical's Marty the Walking Robot Review
Robotical's Marty the Walking Robot Review
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL7hPTcBUsll6_Gjhd2QXzCO4SxfGc_7KTNwDp9oSC5gAnv7Gg9iapTRLfKJPw9rjbfkz-03IkIetza8HGqgGQxUxHNU1yAVVWjO8M5Hjchc1kc8R_xwBWTH6Xa1EewQuG5Aa8qV25OdA/s640/Marty-review-head.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL7hPTcBUsll6_Gjhd2QXzCO4SxfGc_7KTNwDp9oSC5gAnv7Gg9iapTRLfKJPw9rjbfkz-03IkIetza8HGqgGQxUxHNU1yAVVWjO8M5Hjchc1kc8R_xwBWTH6Xa1EewQuG5Aa8qV25OdA/s72-c/Marty-review-head.jpg
Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children
https://www.techagekids.com/2017/08/roboticals-marty-walking-robot-review.html
https://www.techagekids.com/
https://www.techagekids.com/
https://www.techagekids.com/2017/08/roboticals-marty-walking-robot-review.html
true
15639169850959392
UTF-8
Loaded All Posts Not found any posts VIEW ALL Read more Reply Cancel reply Delete By Home PAGES POSTS View All RECOMMENDED FOR YOU LABEL ARCHIVE SEARCH ALL POSTS Not found any post match with your request Back Home Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat January February March April May June July August September October November December Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec just now 1 minute ago $$1$$ minutes ago 1 hour ago $$1$$ hours ago Yesterday $$1$$ days ago $$1$$ weeks ago more than 5 weeks ago Followers Follow THIS PREMIUM CONTENT IS LOCKED STEP 1: Share to a social network STEP 2: Click the link on your social network Copy All Code Select All Code All codes were copied to your clipboard Can not copy the codes / texts, please press [CTRL]+[C] (or CMD+C with Mac) to copy