iRobot's New Education Robot Makes Learning to Code a Little More Affordable | Robotics - IEEE Spectrum

Evan Ackerman, senior writer for IEEE Spectrum’s award-winning robotics blog, Automaton summarizes, At $129, the new version of Root makes a few compromises for a substantial discount.

Photo: iRobot

iRobot has been on a major push into education robots recently. They acquired Root Robotics in 2019, and earlier this year, launched an online simulator and associated curriculum designed to work in tandem with physical Root robots. The original Root was intended to be a classroom robot, with one of its key features being the ability to stick to (and operate on) magnetic virtual surfaces, like whiteboards. And as a classroom robot, at $200, it’s relatively affordable, if you can buy one or two and have groups of kids share them.

For kids who are more focused on learning at home, though, $200 is a lot for a robot that doesn't even keep your floors clean. And as nice as it is to have a free simulator, any kid will tell you that it’s way cooler to have a real robot to mess around with. Today, iRobot is announcing a new version of Root that’s been redesigned for home use, with a $129 price that makes it significantly more accessible to folks outside of the classroom.

The Root rt0 is a second version of the Root robot—the more expensive, education-grade Root rt1 is still available...

Root coding robots are designed for kids age 6 and up, ships for free, and is available now.
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Source: IEEE Spectrum