ROMO came at the perfect time. My 10-year-old niece, Isabella, is halfway through 5th grade, and almost ready to embark on the adventure that is middle school. Her mom is a dentist, her father, an engineer, and Bella has always shown an interest in science, math and technology. And with nearby middle schools offering robotics programs, her parents are trying to support any interest she may have in one of these fields Especially when it comes disguised as a surprisingly warm, fun and friendly robot.
Isabella and ROMO, whom she nicknamed “Momo”, hit it off right away. Unlike tech toys that take specialized batteries, time-consuming membership sites, and various other pre-play prep tasks that are inevitably delegated to mom and dad, ROMO went from package to play in less than five minutes. Here’s the setup:
1. Download the free app from the App Store
2. Put ROMO in his rover base
That’s it. Your child simply follows the prompts as ROMO leads her through simple programming and early robotics concepts. We are just getting started, but ROMO has all sorts of cool features, including the ability to track and follow faces, detect and follow a path, and follow objects. I like that computer programming basics are learned as children play and interact with ROMO. And Isabella adored him. Here is her take on her ROMO (AKA as Momo) only a few minutes out of the box.
Amazing. I love to fan the flames of STEM interest in my daughters and nieces, especially since it’s an area where I struggled. The warm, fuzzy medium makes catching on to difficult concepts a breeze, and the setup was easy enough for me to tackle it alone, without resorting to my live-in tech support (i.e. my husband Kevin). Brilliant. I firmly believe that kids learn best through play, and ROMO offers plenty of opportunities for both.
ROMO by Romotive retails for $149 at Brookstone, Brookstone.com, and Romotive.com. Check ROMO out on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/romotive, and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/Romotive.
(Disclosure: I received a complementary ROMO to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.)
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