There’s no shortage of interactive surprises with this cool new robot. Designed for children aged 11 and up, the Cue is ideal for introducing artificial intelligence and helping kids advance their coding skills. With this inviting robot and the Cue app from Wonder Workshop, students play games, chat, control, and program the Cue in Blockly or JavaScript. They can even choose their avatar with four to pick from: Charge, Zest, Smirk, and Pep! They’re all very different from each other with unique personalities, expressions, and interactions.
Compared to the Dash and Dot robots that came before it, the Cue is outfitted with improved memory, sensors, processors, and Bluetooth capabilities. Although the Cue has more advanced technology than Dash and Dot, it is still very accessible and designed to accommodate students with various skill levels. For example, kids could use auto mode to tell the Cue to seek, avoid, and explore, or experiment in freestyle mode to customize its behaviors. Ever wanted to text a robot? Teachers can show kids how to message the Cue Robot and discover their robot’s personality from the memes and jokes that are sure to come back their way! Thanks to its witty remarks, the Cue will keep students laughing while they learn!
In the box you’ll find the Cue robot, stickers, a charger, and connector blocks that can be used to attach LEGO structures to the Cue. Other than that, there is absolutely no assembly required—all that remains is downloading the Cue app and making sure the robot is fully charged. When I turned the Cue on, I was surprised by how interactive it was! It asked for a fist bump right away, which was totally awesome.
Since it was the first time I turned it on, it ran some tests and instructed me to update it from the app, which it connected easily to by Bluetooth. After the update, it asked me to sign into my Wonder Workshop account on the app. It asks for a teacher’s or guardian’s email and then has kids create a username, enter their birthdate, and choose a fun avatar photo! Next, I got to demo all the avatars in order to choose which one was my favorite.
It was so funny texting them through the app and having them each respond in unique ways. I chose Pep and then explored the four options on the app: chat, create, code, and control. While it was fun and entertaining to control and chat with Pep, the educational value was more obvious in the create and code options. In the create section, kids can create programs in a graphical, drag-and-drop environment to make the Cue move, make sound, react to them, and more.
In the code section, they can create programs to complete challenges in a blockly or a Java environment based on their skill level. As they have fun with the Cue Robot, students will be learning 21st century skills, like design, critical, and computational thinking. All in all, Pep was very responsive and exciting to experiment with!
With the Cue, kids will experience interactive communication unlike that found in any other robot! To purchase some Cue Robots, click below to visit the Eduporium store! And, look out next Wednesday for the next edition of the Eduporium Experiment featuring the MOD-t 3D printer! In the meantime, don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more and you might as well like us on Facebook, too!