Pros & Cons
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- Portable.
- Interacts with marks drawn on paper.
- Social features.
- Several ways to code.
- Affordable.
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- Not very durable.
- Not for advanced coders.
The tiny, adorable Ozobot Evo ($99) is the best small robot you can buy for younger kids. There's a surprising amount of fun and functionality packed into its shell, which isn't much larger than a Hershey's Kiss. It features three different ways to code, a nascent social network, and even some Marvel superhero tie-ins. Ozobot isn't as well-known as Sphero , a larger robot toy that has a great audience in schools thanks to its well-developed lesson plans and education support. But the Evo's portability and unique interactivity with paper and markers make it a better buy for individual kids, and our Editors' Choice.
Physical Features
The Ozobot Evo is a tiny, hemispherical robot, about an inch and a quarter in diameter, that comes in white or black. You can dress it up with rubbery covers called OzoSkins, which my daughter and I call "hats." There are a wide range of OzoSkins, and it seems to be random which one you get.
The coolest OzoSkins are the Marvel superheroes, which will be available in December. Right now, they're just busts of Captain America and Iron Man, for $30 each. Hulk, Black Widow, and Ultron are coming in the future. The skins promise "new interactions and missions" for more structured play than you get with the default Ozobot. The bot also comes with four colored markers, a cardboard "playfield," a micro USB charging cable, and a little pouch.
The Evo is smaller than competitors like Sphero and Wonder Dash, and I've found that to be a plus. It's much more compatible with scenarios built from Lego and Playmobil, rather than crushing them like a clumsy kaiju monster.
The Evo has an array of five lights on the front and one on the top, and they can change colors on demand. It also makes an array of little chittering noises. It has front and rear infrared proximity sensors, and a color sensor on the bottom that lets it detect the color of surfaces it's traveling over. It charges via USB; I got about 20 minutes of playtime on a 15-minute charge.
Because the Ozobot is so tiny, I'm a little concerned about durability. We got two Evo units, and after unleashing one at a party, one wheel locked up. I think it might have caught a crumb in it. The robot does not look easily repairable, and the warranty is only for manufacturer defects.
Three Ways to Play
Ozobot's original idea was that it "codes" by following colored lines on paper, called OzoCodes. That's brilliant, because it brings coding from the virtual world into the physical one, and I found that it engages kids as young as six. There's something great about a bunch of kids scuttling around on a giant piece of butcher paper with Crayola markers coloring out little dashed codes that reflect various changes in speed, direction, tricks, and even point counters for challenges. The Evo comes with various challenges to teach OzoCodes, usually by letting kids fill in the codes to let the robot navigate mazes. You don't need to use the playfield; it will work on any white surface that you draw on.
The Ozobot Bit, the second generation, brought in Ozoblockly, which is a visual block language like Google Blockly or MIT Scratch; I'm teaching Scratch to my ten-year-old right now. It lets you introduce loops, variables, light and sound changes, and sensor detection to your program. You're still basically following colored patches on paper, though, because the Ozobot's color sensor faces down. Uploading OzoBlockly programs is much easier with the Evo than it was with the Bit; the Bit required that you hold the robot up to your screen, which was very temperamental, while the Evo just beams the programs over through Bluetooth. The robot can only hold one program at a time, though. The Ozoblockly Web interface offers some examples and challenges, but the library of prewritten code and lessons isn't as rich as Sphero's. You'll have to build your own fun.
The Evo is the third generation Ozobot, and adds a third way to program the robot. What's new here is a pure remote control app, which most kids love but is the least educational approach. Kids can drive the robot around and control all the sounds and lights with the app. My daughter actually doesn't like this—she said she doesn't want the Evo to be yet another remote-control toy. Still, the remote control lets you record macros (there's a button in the app that lets you record actions, hit stop, then play it over again), and yes, macros are programming. The remote control app also lets you make "friends" with other Ozobot owners, and then, when you're apart, if both sets of robots are on and connected, send sequences of actions to them. It's a cute, unique way for faraway friends to share some playtime.
Comparisons and Conclusions
We've been lucky to spend more than a month with Ozobot Evo. It's practically a family member now. We really appreciate its quirky personality, pocketable portability (something a lot of other kids' robots don't have), ability to draw tracks with any marker on any paper, and all the entry points it has for playing and coding.
I'm skeptical about the social features, if only because I'm always skeptical of toys that require friends to buy the same toy (for what it's worth, I'm also skeptical of iMessage). But even without the ability to send messages and motions to other Evo robots, this is a great tech toy.
There are a lot of educational robots out there at the moment. The Anki Cozmo ($179.99) could be great, but it's only in beta right now, with an incomplete SDK and many deliveries pushed to 2017. The Sphero SPRK+ ($129.99) is best for schools, as it's larger (and thus harder to lose) and has great support for classroom activities. For advanced programmers, Sphero's Oval language, which is based on C, offers an expert level not available with Ozobots. Wonder's Dash and Dot robots ($149.99) are larger and have many more sensors.
The Evo also competes with the smaller Ozobot Bit. Younger kids will be perfectly happy with the Bit, which follows colored lines around and can run Ozoblockly programs. But the Evo has the remote control app, and more lights, sounds, and sensors for a richer experience. The makes the Ozobot Evo our robot pick for the holidays, and our Editors' Choice.