Tropes

robohub 00019.txt

#New educational robot helps kids learn coding through music Meet Wigl! Wigl is an interactive educational robot with a musical ear. We ve launched our Indiegogo campaign for Wigl the first musical robot buddy for kids. Wigl is controlled by musical notes through instruments such as a recorder guitar fiddle and even a singer s voice! By sequencing notes together like lines of code in a program children can make Wigl dance and even uncover secret dances. This fusion of right brain creativity with left brain logic engages children and promotes cross-disciplinary learning. I see a worldwide shortage of quality engineers. People seem to believe that strong Math skills are the most important prerequisite for being an engineer. However I think that creative problem solving is far more important and is really the foundation of Engineering. With Wigl we can instill this skill and get kids interested in Engineering from an early age. Wigl uses a microphone microcontroller and two motors to hear understand and move to the music. Original versions of Wigl used DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency) chips which are used commonly in touch-tone phone systems. After re-purposing the circuit to listel to audible frequencies from a musical instrument Wigl was born. One challenge that Wigl faced was its initial cost ($150. After realizing that using DTMF chips would be too expensive to cover a full scale a redesign was necessary. Using a Fast fourier transform (FFT) derivative Wigl is able to process sounds at a fraction of the cost of other solutions. While listening for a full scale of notes Wigl has two modes:(1) Auto Modewhen Wigl hears a musical note that it knows it moves and lights up. Specific notes make Wigl move in specific ways. For example an A might move Wigl forward while A d could move Wigl backward. If you play a series of notes together to form a song Wigl celebrates with a special dance!(2) Programming Modeinstead of Wigl moving once it hears a note it stays still and stores it in its memory. Every note played is memorized like lines of code in a computer program. Then to run your Wigl program you play a special NTERNOTE and watch Wigl go. This is a fun way to problem solve (e g. Wiglng out of a maze) and teach kids the basics of coding: notes as pseudocode! While most robotic toys on the market require a smartphone or a computer for remote control Wigl interacts directly with the child and their instruments. Most children s entertainment is moving towards software mainly on tablets and I believe that limits their creativity and understanding of what s possible. We want kids to think outside the tablet and so we remove the screen in order to encourage direct interaction with Wigl. After extensive testing at a number of schools and children s museums over the past year and a half by hundreds of children and their parents Wigl is now ready for pre-orders! Since winning the Crowd Pleaser award at Robohub s Robot Launch 2014 Odd I/O has teamed up with Indiegogo to bring Wigl to the public

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