Bug out with these adorable robot bugs! Fold the pieces together in the style of Origami, then mount them on Bluetooth-enabled chassis and bring them to life. Use the app to connect, play games, battle and much more. Check out these cute-as-a-bug competitors in this video!
Product Info:
Get ready to bug out with some ingenious, new robots. The Kami Gami robots from Mattel and Dash Robotics are ingenious little guys that you build by folding plastic sheets onto a robot chassis, hence the play on Origami in the name. These are the Scarrax and Terrix models. You only build the robot once. The robotic bases are identical, and only the tops change. Once built, charge up the robot using the USB cord and connect your robots to the app via bluetooth. The connection was easy and fast, and the app will recognize which of the robots is connected. Let's take a look at the base. The chassis has six flipper-like "legs" that allow it to run around pretty much like a big bug. The rest of it is pretty sophisticated, too. It has an accelerometer, gyroscope IR transmitter and IR sensors and three-color LED lights, all of which contribute to the ease of use and the fun. The movement is fast, silly and entertaining, that's for sure.
Once connected, you can make your robot run, dance, play tag or battle with other robots in the line, and you can do some very simplistic coding/programming of the model. Basically the programs you create are only one line; it can only execute one command at a time, so it's very rudimentary, but we like changing the lights and making it go. That's really what they play is about. This is not a STEM or coding toy as you're just building sequences of actions from pre-programmed actions.
The robots are responsive, and fun, and they're reasonably priced--about $50 each. The movement, as noted, is fun, and the tag and battle modes are almost identical. Basically you chase another robot around and fire at it. Fun as it is on it's own, we think that kids will have more fun when they can each run one to engage in the tag and battle modes.
The robots tend to disconnect from the app fairly quickly when not being played with, but a quick tap on the reconnect button, and you're back in business. Bottom line, this is a fun and unique robotic toy--not quite sophisticated r/c, not quite programmable robot. It's really in a class by itself, and ideal for kids 8 and up who will be intrigued by the easy operation and diverse play and just have a blast with it.
