Thanks to Suzanne for this report on these innovative robots that you can make at home. Created in Gloucestershire but further developed on the Isle of Wight. Ed
Last week saw the BETT Show (a leading education technology event) being held at Excel, London Docklands and the OhBot and MEGOhBOT (talking and moving head robots) constructed on the Isle of Wight were on display.
These inventions were also short-listed for BETT Awards 2016 and were awarded Highly Commended in a very competitive section, thus putting the invention and the Isle of Wight firmly on the robot map.
The story of OhBot and MEGOhBot
Originally there was just OhBot, but the response for this type of robot has been so great across the UK and worldwide that first BIGBOT and then MEGOhBOT were constructed especially for the show.
Dan Warner, and his business partner Mat Walker, have together developed OhBot, a talking robot head that can be programmed to follow simple instructions.
This educational robot was created in Gloucestershire and with the invention selling worldwide further development and resizing has taken place with the aid of Martin Warner from Ryde.
Learning the skill of coding
Primary school children as young as seven can teach Ohbot to tell their parents to “Go and tidy your room”, “To eat up your broccoli” or to “switch the TV off at once!”
Dan Warner, a roboticist, said:
“OhBot is a brilliant way to teach children the skill of coding – what parents used to call ‘computer programming’. Most children find programming OhBot really easy to pick up. They’re much better at this sort of thing than their parents.
“OhBot can do so many things. It can talk, move its head, smile and frown. You can programme its eyes to follow you around the room.
“OhBot is great for children of all ages from about six. It appeals as much to girls as to boys, but what children like most is the way it talks. You tell it what to say and its lips synchronise automatically with the words you’ve given it. I’ve seen so many children make OhBot tell their parents to behave!”
Co-creator Mat Walker added:
“Children love accessorising OhBot. You can make some hair out of pipe cleaners, stick a hat on or give it a pair of sunglasses. OhBot is different from previous educational robots because it’s in “human” form, rather than “turtle shaped” like the vast majority of robots that have been in schools since the 1960s.”
Don’t hurt its feelings
Unlike most of those old-fashioned robots, OhBot can talk, display emotions, act, react and solve real world problems. It can be programmed to teach spellings or maths, ask questions and record the answers, even lead a cookery demonstration! You simply plug OhBot into a PC computer and it’s ready to be programmed.
Dan Warner and Mat Walker have been taking their invention around schools but they have now released it on sale directly to families. Anyone wanting to buy one simply pop over to the OhBot Website.
A tiny cottage industry
Dan Warner added,
“Ohbot has been a tiny cottage industry so far, but it’s ready to move into the mainstream. We’ve taken OhBot into lots of schools and they love it, but now we’re ready to offer Ohbot directly to parents and grandparents at home.”
The two OhBots built at Ryde(called BigBot and MEGOhbot) are three times size demonstration models especially made for the BETT Exhibition where the OhBot was a finalist in the BETT awards for The ICT Innovator of the Year.
None sold on IW yet
The Arduino based controller used now on the latest OhBot uses software written by Martin Warner, who said he was sorry that no OhBots have been sold to schools or families on the Island.
He added,
”For me the key features for OhBot for children (and adults) are:
You can programme it easily to do things.
You can see how it works.
It has human like expressions so it can express emotions.
It’s fun and you can build it yourself, and for adults: All the above, and its reasonably priced.”
The star of BETT
After success at BETT show Mat added,
“MEGohbot was seriously the star of the whole of BETT and was probably solely responsible for us being voted a “we’d love it in school” prize in kids’ judging.
“MEGohbot ran faultlessly for 4 days solid and we had many enquiries about buying and hiring it.”
Outstanding achievement
BETT Awards 2016 were a great success and it was a packed house at the Brewery for the annual celebration for all the best technology in the education sector. With more entries than ever before, these awards are becoming more and more difficult to win and increasingly valuable as a marketing tool.
Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, attended the event and presented an outstanding achievement award to Dominic Savage, the man behind the BETT Show.
