PARENTING
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By BREE FOWLER The Associated Press NEW YORK – Looking for a cool tech gift for a kid in your life? There’s no shortage of fun and fairly educational items these days. New toys for the holidays include little robot friends full of personality and magnetic blocks that snap together to teach the basics of computer programing. Here are some toys designed to keep kids entertained without sacrificing on education:
around your house. When he’s close to running out of juice, he even heads over to his charging pad and parks himself. This little guy is very loud when he zips around the room, so apartment-dwellers with hardwood floors might want to invest in a rug.
Additional realities
“Pokemon Go” isn’t the only way kids can play with augmented reality, the blending of the real and virtual worlds. And there are toys that make virtual reality affordable.
• Air Hogs Connect: Mission Drone.
With this $150 system, kids use an app Hands-on Tech to fly an included drone over a sensor Tablet screens and apps haven’t pad that, combined with a phone or gone away, but they’re just not enough tablet’s camera, places the drone into on their own. With these toys, kids can the game on the screen. As the physical create and build with their hands, not drone moves, so does the one in the just a tablet. game. Kids fly the drone through hoops AP photo • Osmo. As kids arrange magnetic and shoot down alien invaders. Play is This photo provided by Educational Insights shows the IllumiCraft Light Up! Speaker blocks or puzzle pieces, their creations limited by the drone’s estimated 10-minDock. IllumiCraft provides kits that combine science and crafting to introduce basic cir- ute flying time. show up on the iPad thanks to a mirror cuitry. Projects include light-up diaries, jewelry organizers, smartphone speakers and attached to the tablet’s camera. By ar• VR Real Feel Virtual Reality Car Racing picture frames. ranging blocks, for instance, kids put Gaming System. This $30 car racing game together lines of code to guide an onincludes a wireless steering wheel and is expressive, adorable and fun to play screen monster. Another game teaches Coding for preschoolers? a virtual-reality headset you stick your with. A team of animators designed Parents with dreams of future highentrepreneurial and math skills by phone into. It’s not the fanciest VR tech careers are eager for their children more than 500 reactions for the robot letting kids run their own pizza shop. technology, but it’s a lot of fun for what to pick from when it sees someone it to learn computer programming. And The base set costs $30. You then buy you pay. The system is set to ship Dec. add-ons, such as coding for $50 and the some toy makers say it’s never too early recognizes, wins or loses a game, or 12. completes a task. The result is a very to introduce coding concepts, even if a pizza business for $40. It works only cute and human-like buddy – think child is still in diapers. with iPads for now. Pixar’s Wall-E. • Think & Learn Code-a-Pillar. Kids as • Meccano sets. This is for the tween • CHiP. This $200 young as 3 can “write” code by snapor young teen who is handy with a robot doggie ping together a $50 toy caterpillar. Each wrench and has a lot of time. Even the cuddles, section signifies a command, such as trio of smaller Micronoids sets ($40) plays “go straight” or “play sounds.” Hit the require a decent amount of time and fetch and execute button to send the toy crawling significant motor skills. The larger follows models, such as the $140 Meccanoid 2.0, in the chosen order. Older kids can you program Code-a-Pillar to reach targets can take the better part of a day to conplaced across a room, or send it through struct. Once assembled, these robots can be programed to dance, play games an obstacle course of their own creation. While the kids aren’t learning and interact with each other. a coding language, the toy does try • Illumicraft. Don’t let the girly to teach cause and effect, as well as colors or rainbow stickers turn you problem solving. off. The $20 kit combines science and • Coji. As its name implies, this $60 crafting to introduce basic circuitry. mini robot teaches pre-readers to code Projects include light-up diaries, jewwith emojis. It also reacts when you tilt elry organizers, smartphone speakers or shake it, and you can control it with and picture frames. your phone or tablet. • Code This Drone. Software compa• Code & Go Robot Mouse Activity Set. ny Tynker and drone maker Parrot With this $60 toy, kids build a maze have joined forces to create this kit, which includes a drone and a one-year with plastic squares and dividers, then program their mouse to make its way subscription to Tynker’s education This photo provided by through to the cheese at the end. service. The kit costs $100 to $150 WowWee shows Coji, a mini depending on the drone selected. It robot that teaches pre-readRobots with personality teaches the basics of coding through ers to code with emojis. It Kids want more than robots they games played with an app-controlled also reacts when you tilt or can guide with a remote or smartphone. mini drone. Kids can program their shake it, and you can control Kids want personality, a little friend to own flight plan of flips and turns, or it with your phone or tablet. whom they can relate and who recogbuild their own game to send an onAP photo app through an obstacle course, as the nizes them. • Cozmo. This $180, palm-sized robot real drone mirrors the movements.
Northwest Herald / NWHerald.com • Friday, December 2, 2016
Cool tech toys for the kid in your life