Our two levels function on very different principles. Do you know what they are? Take a quick stroll through our robotics and coding guide!

Robo Wunderkind offers one intuitive and free app with three levels that help facilitate the teaching of coding and robotics to children as young as 5. The first two levels are called Robo Live and Robo Code, and perhaps the most important thing to say right away is that neither of them requires any previous language skills. This makes them ideal for all children, regardless of age, background or learning abilities. Robo Live allows immediate remote control and is meant for the younger children, while Robo Code offers the first taste of real coding. Let’s take a closer look at what they both do.

Robo Live app

You’ll find the basic guide to using the Robo Live app and the projects you can create with it together with your pupils in the Introductory Projects. They are all mildly to moderately complex and are ideal for coding beginners, who first need to acquaint themselves with the practicalities of Robo Wunderkind before they are able to conceptualize a coding sequence planned in advance. The Introductory Projects help children understand what robots are, what they do; what remote control means, and what purposes technology can serve. They create their first robotic experiments and to grasp the logical connections between abstract commands and specific action.

Projects include Robo Synthesizer, Colorful Night Light, Robo Fan, and more. Through these, children learn about mechanical design and design in general, controls design, input & output, and the different controls (sound, light, movement). Once finished, they’ve made a big leap in the coding and logic department. They’re able to visualize abstract concepts and understand what it means to build robots with a specific use for them in mind. They have repeatedly tried, failed and learned from their mistakes by repeating and perfecting their actions until they worked––which is the founding principle of constructivism, a theory that encourages learning from one’s experience, the leading theory we used when designing the Robo Wunderkind curriculum. They’re ready to advance.  

Robo Code app

Robo Code represents their graduation into a more advanced realm. After children learn the basics of remote control and robotics, they can move onto the Block #1 Lessons and work with the Robo Code app, planning Robo’s first steps in advance. They learn about code design through designing code; they acquaint themselves with state-machine based programming, sequential logic, loops, parallel execution, digital literacy. They are lead to immerse themselves in the engineering design process––a way of finding practical and delightful solutions to real-world problems. 

Children train their imagination and creativity through creating a Robo who drives around (movement), lights up the classroom (light), travels to Toytown (movement, sounds), meets friends (movement, sounds), and more. Through play-based education, another integral part of constructivism, children learn to make reflective observations about their actions (toy and code design), conceptualize ways to improve them, and actively experiment with both until they get their design right––or until it can perform the desired function. This circular process is the perfect way to embrace initial mishaps as a valuable learning method rather than being discouraged by them.

Furthermore, step-by-step, they get familiar with digital literacy––a topic highly discussed these days, a topic close to our hearts here at Robo Wunderkind. Through creating something physical and purposeful with the help of an electronic device, they learn to form a healthy relationship with technology, recognizing its creative potential. They also do this through computational thinking, a method inspired by the way computers work. It leads children to break down complex problems into smaller particles, recognize the patterns among these individual particles, and use this pattern to solve a problem, as they continue to identify it in different situations. It is a method commonly used when receiving an unfamiliar problem and being tasked with the challenge to solve it. Thus, coding and robotics become a child’s tool in shaping the world around them. And that is the empowerment we facilitate. 

Perhaps the best thing about both our apps is that they are not limited to the lessons we have designed. Teachers can plan their own lessons, and go beyond the borders of computer science. We encourage the cross-disciplinary learning process, and recommend ways in which coding, robotics, and Robo Wunderkind can be used to teach other subjects––such as art, or math. We believe this is the trend that will rule modern education in the years to come. 

You can download both apps for free in the App Store (Robo Live, Robo Code), on Google Play (Robo Live, Robo Code), it's also available for Windows 7, 8 and 10 (Robo Live, Robo Code), Chromebooks and Fire OS. All lessons delivered by both apps are introduced through a story, which helps draw children from the K-5 age group in, as they are very receptive to story-telling. (We even wrote a blog post about this topic.) Both apps encourage group work as well as individual learning. Children are allowed to pursue their own ideas and projects in the individual additional activity, encouraging them to think independently and challenging them to come up with their solutions to problems, which is a skill they will learn to come back to time and time again in life. They are also lead to present their project to the class, which trains their presentation and rhetoric skills.

To explore our educational materials more in-depth, you can find them here.