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The set also includes 2 cones, 2 balls, 2 flags, and a large orange circle that is supposed to be used as Botley's goal to reach. The cones, balls, and flags are nice to use as obstacles which Botley is suppose to overcome. One of the options on the remote is labeled, "Object Detection" and this indicates to Botley that when he runs into one of the obstacles, he is suppose to figure out how to maneuver around it....he has not been successful so far at doing this though and still completing the rest of his course....but this might be user error.
The robot also includes 6 double-sided cardboard cards. They measure roughly 6 x 6" each. One side is black and white and the other is multi-colored. When Botley's settings are switched to "line" mode, he runs along the black line outlined on the black and white side of the cards. This feature also seems a little finicky. Sometimes he just spins in a circle because he cannot find the black line so it is important to line him up precisely. Also, the cards really cannot be used easily on a carpeted surface because sometimes the robot's wheels get caught on the carpeting and this pushes him off the black line and he gets stuck. Of all his features this is the one we have struggled with the most. I also wish that they had included about 10x the number of these cards. The path it makes is tiny and short and is really a waste of time to set up. He cannot transition from the cube & rod maze to the black & white maze on his own so they cannot be combined, unfortunately. I wish they had developed a ramp feature so that this was possible because, it would have greatly increased the mobility of Botley and the number of different possible builds for the maze. As it stands both maze options are very small and thus limited.
The other side of the cards are brightly colored and designed to practice some more advanced/independent coding opportunities. My son is just starting out and is only 5 years old and so we have only used this option once. But, it does seem to have great possibilities and I'm looking forward to him being able to use this option more in the future.
I love that the sound can be turned off (for when the parent gets tired of hearing it or when there is a sleeping sibling in the house). I also think it was such a cute idea to include a list of "secret coding commands" in the instruction booklet. These allow him to preform cute tricks in which he says, "Hi" and spins etc.
I don't love that we have gone through about 20 AAA batteries since purchasing it less then 1 month ago. It does have an off switch and this has not been used as effectively as it should have been and yet, I do think that simply using one D-cell battery in both the robot and the remote would have been a much better approach.
Overall, we love him and recommend him as a great beginning coding toy.
#learningresources #botley
