Control With Bots

It always amazes me how much I learn from my children. This Easter holiday my boys of 9 and 10 introduced me to their latest craze-Incredibots! This website allows users to sign up free, save and embed their creations. With a bit of guidance from my 9 year old I was able to explore a bit and found that kids creating their bots can use a variety of shapes, joints and movement commands to build and manipulate these robots. There is a lot of trial and error and critical thinking involved in this. I think this free applications (which does accept monitary support for those wishing to help out)  may have a lot of potential for learning.

Below I have embedded one my son did(The instructions on screen and robot start position to the left). It is a bit of a game really. I have also embedded my first try-very basic. Click play and use the a and v and arrow keys to see what it does. I still need to work on it as one of the components tends to tip over when in operation!