Top Brands: Sphero - Wonder Workshop - Makeblock - Amazon Kids
BLACK FRIDAY: Amazon Fire Kids Pro 10"
BLACK FRIDAY: Amazon Fire Kids Pro 10"
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.
Wonder Workshop is doing a brilliant job of making robotics and coding fun and accessible for children. We've had the pleasure of playing with the new Dot Creativity Kit for children aged 6+.
We're quite familiar with the Wonder Workshop robots, Dash and Dot, as we've owned them for a couple years and written a bit about them about on the blog.
In this post we share my 7-year-old's exploration of the green Dot robot and all the accessories that come with the Creativity Kit.
Disclaimer: Wonder Workshop sent us a Dot Creativity Kit for the purpose of this review. Our views are always our own.
What's in the Box
The Dot Creativity Kit is a compact box that contains a green Dot robot and USB charging cable. Dot needs to be charged and you may need to follow a firmware upgrade when you connect the robot with the accompanying app. (More about the app later.)The box is also packed with accessories and templates to encourage creative play. There is a useful stand for Dot, building brick connectors (LEGO compatible attachments) and a special connector to attach the cardboard templates to Dot. There's also a fun silicon cover for the robot with a loop to hang Dot. The cardboard accessories include costumes, an octopus stand and a box which you can use to create a large dice with Dot. The cardboard templates are beautifully designed with appealing colours and characters for children in this age range.
There's also a sticker set which my son loved. He put a plaster on Dot because the robot fell over!
Don't discard the box, it makes a perfectly good storage container for Dot and all the bits. We kept the silicone cover in a plastic bag as we found it made oily stains on the cardboard.
The Creativity Kit also includes 20 challenge cards to guide your child through coding activities using the various costumes, connectors, and accessories. The challenges include games, pretend play and opportunity for construction or crafting.
Each activity has a code for the completed code for the challenge, so if your child is initially more interested in the making part of the challenge, they can just download the coding part.
The Robot - Dot
Previously Dot was blue like Dash, but we really like this bright green version in the Creativity Kit. Unlike Dash, Dot can't move, but it's packed with lots of input sensors and outputs to control. There are 4 buttons that can be programmed separately, an accelorometer which is great for all sorts of activities, programmable LEDs on either side of the head and an eye with 12 programmable LEDs. There's also a distance sensor and Dot can detect sound.
And my son's favourite function - you can record your own voice and then use those recordings in your program.
There's a lot packed into this little robot and it's full of personality which is very appealing for children (and adults)!
The App & Coding
Before you can start the challenges included in the Kit, you need to download the Wonder app which is available for iOS, Andriod and Amazon devices. See a list of compatible devices here.
- Read about our experience using Dot with Amazon Fire tablets.
When you first download the app you need to complete 7 challenges (Wonder Workshop) in the Scroll Quest to 'train' the robot before you open the free play area of the app. It took about 10 min to complete this. It also provides an introduction to how the programming tool works.
If you're new to Dot don't rush through these steps just to get to the Creative Kit programs. The tutorial is really well done and you'll learn lots of transferable skills which you can use the change the programs in the Kit's challenges. You'll be introduced to coding with light, sound, sequencing, loops and thinking about timing in your program.
If you're not new to Dot and would like to skip this training step you need the secret code.
In the Wonder App:
1)Touch and hold down on Eli's head (and continue holding through step 4).
2)Tap on Free Play.
3)Tap on Eli's body.
4)Tap on Free Play. This will activate an option screen which will allow you to unlock Free Play and All Cues.
The Wonder app uses an event-based graphical programming tool, which is different to the typical block-based coding tools like, Scratch. There are several apps in the Wonder Workshop family that work with the different robots and attachments. The Wonder, Go and Block-based coding apps work with Dot. The Wonder app is recommended for the Creativity Kit.
Once you've opened the 'Free Play' area in the Wonder app, you can click 'Enter Key' to get the program on the challenge cards.
It's not cheating to use the keys to get the programs! I found with my son, it gave him a starting point. He also learned new coding skills by working through the completed code.
If you want to make changes, you need to save the program and then open it again to enable editing.
Making
We love the addition of craft material with Dot.
We're strong believers that kids should be learning both coding and making skills. The Dot Creativity Kit brings the two worlds together for young children.
There's plenty of making included in the kit, but hopefully, it would serve as a prompt to make your own templates based on existing ones or come up with your own inventions.
Our heads are buzzing with ideas! (We'll just have to write another post about Dot.)
We found some of the cardboard characters a bit fiddly to make. My son was frustrated that the characters wouldn't stay on so we invented a rubber strap with a chain of loom bands. The rubber helped to stick better to Dot, but it did bend the mask a little.
The connector to attach Dot to the cardboard Octopus and Dice Box is very clever and we felt Dot was quite secure.
My son found making the lantern too tricky and was scared to tear the thin paper. Once we made it together Dot switched off and we had to take it apart to switch it back on again. He's determined to design his own lantern (in another post!)
The building block connectors provide you with another reason to get the big box of LEGO out. And really the possibilities are endless. Can you make Dot move using LEGO?
Verdict
The Dot Creativity Kit gets a big thumbs up from my son and Tech Age Kids. We think bringing together coding and making is brilliant and it encourages learning through play.
Dot is a great addition to the modern family's toy cupboard. It offers an opportunity to add robotics and coding to role play, construction, crafting, and games.
You will get a lot of value from this robotics kit, especially if you can invest in it when your child is young. It is definitely one of our favourite first robots for young kids.
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- machines
- magnetic
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- makedo
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- my first robot
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- new year
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- physics
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- playstation 4
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- products
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- programming
- project
- projects
- puzzles
- python
- racing
- raspberry pi
- reading
- reivew
- remote control
- research
- resource
- resources
- retro
- review
- rights
- robot
- robot dog
- robot fish
- robot wars
- ROBOTERRA
- roboticals
- robotics
- robots
- role models
- role play
- romo
- romotive
- root
- rover
- safety
- sam labs
- samuel morse
- sandbox
- schools
- science
- scratch
- scratchjr
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- screens
- sensors
- servos
- simbrix
- skills
- skylanders
- skylanders superchargers
- skylanders swap force
- smart pens
- smartphone
- smartwatch
- snap circuits
- social media
- solar power
- soldering
- sonic pi
- sony koov
- sound
- space
- sparki
- speaker
- speech sythesis
- sphero
- sphero mini
- spider
- star wars
- stars
- STEAM
- stem
- stikbot
- stop motion
- stop motion studio
- storage
- story
- strawbees
- students
- subscription
- subscriptions
- sugru
- summer
- swift
- tablet
- tablets
- tangible coding
- tech
- tech age
- tech craft
- tech is bad
- tech is good
- tech toys
- tech will save us
- technology
- technology will save us
- teens
- teknikio
- tekno
- teksta
- tenka labs
- tesla
- textiles
- thames & kosmos
- the extraordinaires
- tim berners lee
- tinkercad
- tinybop
- toddlers
- toot-toot
- top pick
- touch
- toy
- toys
- travelling
- TTS
- TV
- tween
- tweens
- tynker
- typing
- ux
- vehicles
- videos
- view-master
- views
- virtual reality
- voice assistants
- voice recognition
- vr
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- websites
- wifi
- wii
- wii u
- windows 8
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- wowwee
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