Speaking of cute robots....

[dvandom]

My older niece got to play with one of these Bee-Bots the other day and really liked it, and my mom was asking if I could find something similar but not, you know, a couple hundred bucks (after accessories). Marah is pretty precocious toywise, but probably won't be ready for Mindstorms for a few years yet. Anyone have suggestions for something like the Bee-Bot or a simplified Mindstorms-style build-and-program toy? I know there's toy cars you can push buttons to program the path, but I think my mom's interested in something a touch more complicated.

Comments

[jarodrussell.livejournal.com]

What about LEGO WeDo (http://www.legoeducation.us/store/detail.aspx?ID=1573&bhcp=1)? It's Mindstorms for kids.

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, the base set appears to be $130, at which point Mom might as well just get the Bee-Bot. :) Granted, odds of finding ANYTHING likely below the $100 point are slim, otherwise I'd probably already know of something myself.

[jarodrussell.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[grant-p.livejournal.com]

What about one of Wow-Wee's smaller offerings? You can get an older-model Robosapian for very cheap nowadays, and for a toy, a used one would probably work well.

[diosoth.livejournal.com]

Finding something such as this marketed for consumer purchase over classroom use(the Bee-Bot add-ons seem to lean towards classroom use) might be a bit difficult, considering this may be something that's used for 6 months to 1 year. They probably count on long-term classroom use for these.

The only consumer-level young kid learning things I even know of are the "educational" video game consoles(Didj, Leapster) and that's unlikely to be what you want, and Didj games cost so much that even a simple library will push it up(I think the base unit is $60, $30 at Big Lots, but games are still $20-$30 EACH).