From toys to home robots
A maker of robot toys now wants to make a family robot like the one from The Jetsons, writes Pat Pilcher.
The company behind popular connected toys is turning its attention to robots designed to help out around the home.
Sphero is responsible for creating the toy version of BB8, based on the Star Wars character, along with other robot toys such as the Ollie and Spark and the original Sphero ball. The company’s latest connected toy is the Ultimate Lightning Mcqueen, the racing car that’s the star of the Cars movies.
While the ‘‘toys’’ can be used as toys, they are also intended to teach people about technology, including coding.
Coming up with a compelling idea that will find a place on the Christmas wishlists of kid(ults) of all ages required a lot of work and inspiration. Sphero’s chief technology officer Ian Bernstein said he drew on his childhood for ideas. ‘‘Sphero came from a 3am discussion between my Sphero cofounder (Adam Wilson) and me in early 2010. We knew we wanted to make physical things that connected to the smartphone but we didn’t know what.
‘‘We had looked at tons of the more obvious things like door locks and lights but I said, ‘what if we just made something simple, something that you could keep in your pocket, pull it out and throw it on the table, and it did something cool’.
‘‘Then Adam said, ‘what about a marble?’ I thought back to this robot ball I had built when I was a kid and thought, ‘what about a robot ball?’’’
A lot of kids dream of making their own robot buddies. For any kids wanting to move into robotics, Bernstein recommends using one of his own products to develop basic engineering and programming skills.
‘‘I would recommend the Sphero SPRK+. It’s a super fun way to get into programming and engineering. Beyond that, there is a board called the Arduino that you can use to hook up your own lights, motors, and sensors with tons of tutorials online.’’
Building his own robot saw Bernstein drawing inspiration from science-fiction television show and movies. Unsurprisingly, Bernstein is bullish about a future that has robots in our homes.
To help make that happen, Sphero has formed a new company, Misty Robotics, which aims to release its first product next year.
‘‘Our initial robot that will be out next year is the first step towards our big goal but will still be capable of doing a lot of useful tasks around the house and office for things like safety, security, entertainment, or just being your little robot friend,’’ said Bernstein.
‘‘Our big vision is to create the ‘Rosie’ from The Jetsons, a cartoon I grew up with. Rosie is a robot that becomes part of the Jetsons’ family and not only does useful things like cleaning the house, cooking food, and running errands but is also a friend and companion that just hangs out with them, like you would with a good friend.
‘‘In the future I see a household owning a single multipurpose robot like Rosie that similarly does both useful things and can hang out with you. Since motors, batteries, and other electronics you need to make a robot are expensive it makes sense that we’ll have a multipurpose robot like this instead of having many singlepurpose robots.’’
Bernstein said the biggest challenge was designing a robot that people would actually want as a member of their households.
‘‘We can leverage a lot of our learnings from Sphero but designing a friendly robot you want to bring into your home with your wife, husband, kids, pets, etc takes a lot of thought.’’
Two technologies that are going to play a critical role in creating family-friendly robots will be artificial intelligence and machine learning, said Bernstein.
‘‘AI and machine learning are really exciting technologies for us in the robotics industry. There is the physical robot that can move around and interact with things in the real world but the brain of the robot is using a lot of the principles of AI and ML.
‘‘Progress in those industries definitely helps us. AI to help shape the personality of the robot and ML for things such as visual recognition of objects, like a cat or a couch.’’
Making matters even more difficult is the limited range of skills of most home robots. Some trundle around and remind you of appointments while others, like the irobot Roomba, do the vacuuming. Making one robot that can do it all is still a work in progress, said Bernstein
‘‘Some things like cooking are quite difficult so the first wave of home robots likely won’t be able to do those types of tasks. Like a lot of new technologies, we have to start small and move up.
‘‘Likewise, you won’t find our first robot in your local store. We will instead be looking at developers and enthusiasts.’’
Teaching tech doesn't mean children will miss out on core subjects.
But one of the key ideas is to teach children how to use technology to solve problems. So instead of downloading an app and using it to learn some maths, children will be taught how to code an algorithm to better solve a maths problem.
This problem-solving ability is key to our children’s future careers.
This is a tough challenge for our schools as they will need to roll this out for some pupils by next year. Teachers who already struggle with computers must be wondering how they are expected to teach coding, and principals will be scrambling to get skilled staff.
However, there are plenty of talented teachers out there so hopefully they’ll get the support from principals and parents.
Meanwhile, many parents will be confused and sceptical about the plan which, in their eyes, will mean their kids spend even more time on devices.
If you are worried about your kids having too much screen time, you could always stop them using devices at home except for educational purposes.
Teaching tech doesn’t mean children will miss out on core subjects. Tech will become part of their learning so rather than replacing maths, reading and writing, it’ll enhance it.
I encounter a lot of resistance and doubt about tech. But we need to overcome this. The technology revolution is here. You may want to ignore it but we can’t limit opportunities for our children.