Boulder’s Sphero, a maker of robotic toys designed to help inspire an interest in STEM, is getting busy on its mission to help kids learn to code.
The company's push into ed-tech has been met with much fanfare, as they launched the musical coding rings 'Specdrums' at CES in January and the rolling 'Bolt' last year.
Sphero recently introduced a new product on Kickstarter, and immediate returns hint that this product will be a hit.
The Sphero RVR is a programmable, all-terrain tank-like robot that allows users to drive and program a robot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip28n_prmbY
Sphero smashed its initial $150,000 fundraising goal, raising $580,000 in just six days at the time of publishing this story.
Despite Sphero's past success with traditional product launches, this is the company's first foray into the Kickstarter route.
Sphero co-founder Adam Wilson told the Denver Business Journal that the Kickstarter campaign will allow the company to get feedback from early-adopters to help make tweaks to future versions of the RVR.
The RVR will retail for $249 once it gets to stores, but Kickstarter backers can purchase the product for $199. The company has set an October target for shipping the first batch of robots.
As Sphero expands its line of robots, it continues to integrate its unique technologies. RVR will include color sensing technology from Specdrums that will allow the robot to sense and react to certain colors it rolls over.
Specdrums are musical, app-enabled rings that allow children to create and play music by using colors on a variety of surfaces as their instruments. Built with an accelerometer, light sensor and LED’s, Specdrums can recognize thousands of distinct colors and assign notes, chords or samples to them.
On the Specdrums MIX app, users can create and edit music, record samples and share completed songs. Specdrums debuted in early-January, retailing at $64.99 for one-ring and $99.99 for two-rings.
After shifting away from branded products like BB-8s and R2-D2s late last year, Sphero continues to build out its catalog of ed-tech products. With the initial success of the RVR Kickstarter campaign, it appears as if Sphero has found its niche.
