Sphero RVR

I really believe that the best way to get kids to engage with engineering topics is to have fun, engaging projects for them to tackle. All theory and no play makes for a dull experience and glossed over eyes. It’s part of my belief that we should have more top-down learning, and less bottoms-up learning — especially in complex areas like hardware and software engineering.

I’ve had some luck getting my kids excited about coding by using a programmable drone (you can read more here and here). For the first month we had the drone, my son taught every friend who came to our house how to write a basic Python program and code the drone. He loved it — and his friends did as well. Seeing your code cause a physical object to obey your wishes has a certain magic to it.

That’s why I was excited to see the launch of Kickstarter of the Sphero RVR. It looks like a great rover for getting kids excited about code. I love that it is both programmable and will be hardware expandable. Engaging kids with both hardware and software is an exciting opportunity — and opens up a lot of possibilities for different projects and areas to explore.

I’m looking forward to playing with one of these with my kids. If you want to get your kids excited about engineering (or just have a fun set of challenges for yourself on the weekends), give it a try!

Originally published at https://jeffkeltner.com on February 19, 2019.