My oldest son is really interested in coding. In his gifted and talented program at school, he’s had some exposure to coding, but really wants more. We’ve looked into apps, and coding toys. Then an opportunity came up to try out Cozmo by Anki. Cozmo is an adorable little coding robot for kids with big personality. When he arrived in the mail, my kids could barely wait to open the package. When we finally had the time to play with Cozmo, we had more fun than I could have imagined!
Meet Coszmo, the Coding Robot!
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When we opened the package, we found a little robot named Cozmo, and 3 small cubes. Also included was a quick start guide, charging station, and a trouble shooting guide.
We set Cozmo on the charger for a quick charge. At the same time, I downloaded the Cozmo app onto my tablet. Then I connected my tablet to Cozmo’s network, and we were ready to play!
At first, we got to know Cozmo . We introduced ourselves, and Cozmo learned our names. Then we played with the coding robot by trying some of his tricks. Our favorite trick was when our little coding robot stacked the three cubes, and then knocked them down. All three of my boys busted out in laughter!
Next we tried out the Code Lab section in the Cozmo app. In the Code Lab, my son was introduced to block coding. First he played in “Sandbox Mode”, and created a sequence of commands for Cozmo to do. Each sequence started with a “START” command, followed by a series of commands like move, talk, smile, meow like a cat, and other fun things!
Here is my son’s first program:
3 Engineering Activities!
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After playing in the Sandbox awhile, we moved onto another section in the Code Lab called “Constructor Mode”. Here my son played with a more complex version of block coding, more similar to what I had seen in my engineering career. While this mode was a bit more intimating for my 3rd grader at first, I loved watching as he become more comfortable with the code language. I know as he plays more with Cozmo, he will become even more comfortable. In fact, we decided that each week, he would design a new program for Cozmo, as sort of “homework”. But this homework he’s really excited about! He immediately started telling me about all his ideas on to program Cozmo to do next! I was so proud of his first program.
Here’s what Cozmo did!
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