Python / Cozmo / Big Trak

Back in the day I used to own something called a "Big Trak".

It was about the size of a shoe box and used very rudimentary commands to move around and it could fire a "laser". It was an introduction to simple programming and once you put the batteries in you were up and running.

Now the good people at Anki have came up with a tracked
vehicle called "Cozmo". It is about the size of a playing card (to be precise it is 10cm long, 7cm tall by 5.5cm wide) and you can program it using Python or control it with an app. I refuse to refer to it as "he" although many people do, as it is very "Wall-E" esque. It also has a 128x64 bit pixel display to give it cartoon eyes.

I really wanted to like this little robot but there a few issues that are not made totally clear. Firstly, I can't work out if it a mini robot aimed at developers or a toy aimed at kids. Secondly, you need to have a device to run the Cozmo app which in itself is not too bad but to get the most out of it you need to connect that device using a usb cable to a laptop running the SDK, bit of a pain if I am honest.
Also, unlike Big Trak (I once bounced one down some stairs) a lot of reviews for Cozmo complain about the build quality, so if the makers are aiming it as a educational toy it needs to be more robust.

So I have an iPhone running the Cozmo app connected to a Windows laptop running the SDK. If you can program in Python you can do quite a lot but the cute voice can get annoying very quickly and the camera is awful. Hopefully a Cozmo v2 will get a decent camera. The poor camera is probably why it struggles with facial recognition.

So the SDK covers the developers but what about kids using it. Well Anki have came up with something called Code Lab which is based on Scratch. For most kids running the Cozmo app on an iPad is probably all they want. Cozmo can plays games (in a fashion) and has three cubes that light up that Cozmo interacts with and unlike Big Trak the firmware and app will be updated to add more features. At approx £200 it isn't exactly cheap but not massively expensive either, I just wish it was not so heavily dependent on the app and that my laptop could connect using Bluetooth without having to have a phone connected via a usb cable. At least now I have a reason to learn Python when my son asks if he can use Cozmo as a security guard or to chase the cat.

If someone out there wants to add Bluetooth connectivity to the BigTrak Junior (connected to a Raspberry Pi ) I am sure that would be a better option as an educational toy or for the education / budget sector to help teach Python than Cozmo.