There are so many jokes I could make about the “robotic performance” of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing’s contestants but I’ll try to restrain myself to just that comment :)
Q4 technologies announced on Monday that they plan to release software giving children the ability to choreograph robotic ballroom dancers! Their Go-Robo software allows users to control the WowWee range of robots by streaming commands to them in realtime or storing programs in their memory for execution. The software is designed for schools, robotic clubs, or simply for having fun at home. Both the software and the WowWee Roboremote robot will be unveiled at this year’s BETT show (which starts today).
The idea of this innovation is to get children interested in programming and technology from an early age, an idea also endorsed by Microsoft in ther annual report, which advises that including computer programming, not simply use, from an early age will foster an interest in the way software is created and employed in all aspects of modern life.
Different versions of Go-Robo allow children of varying ages to access the system – Go-Robo Choreographer, Go-Robo Dawg Trainer (for younger children) and Go-Robo Studio which controls up to 11 robots at once.
Is this going to work, though? It seems like a silly idea at first, but then I remembered a toy robot I had when I was younger called George. George was programmed by means of a keypad on top of his head, but it taught me the basics of sequential programming and I did end up becoming a computer programmer (for a while, at least). All George could do was roll around the living room, light up, and sound an alarm, but he was still a cool toy. Perhaps letting children program dancing robots will inspire a new generation of programmers after all.
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{ 1 comment }
It’s amazing what people are capable of these days.
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