iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

This is Zora.

It may not look like much — more cute toy than futuristic marvel — but this robot is at the center of an experiment in France to change care for elderly patients.

IKEA is cheap, stylish, and a superb solution for furnishing an entire dwelling on a budget. It’s also the leading cause of divorce in couples who attempt to assemble its furniture at home, according to a poll I just made up for the sake of this joke.

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore created a robot to do the grunt work for you, assembling an IKEA chair in all of 20 minutes. All told, the machine divvied up its time by spending 11 minutes and 21 seconds planning its motion pathways, three seconds locating parts, and then eight minutes and 55 seconds assembling the chair.

Built entirely of off-the-shelf parts, the team designed the robot with an array of sensors, a 3D camera, robotic gripping arms, and some really complex AI, relatively speaking.

If you need a little cuteness with a lot of programming power in your child's toy box, check out Botley the Coding Robot.

iPal is a unique humanoid robot designed to teach children and be a friend at home or in the class room. It sings and dances for fun, and provides lessons and stories for education. There are other possible uses for the robot as well, such as for elder care and as a hospitality host.

In an historic move for both human- and robot-kind, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officially granted its first-ever robot citizenship. Sophia, the artificially intelligent and human-looking robot developed by Hong Kong company Hanston Robotics, went on stage at the Future Investment Initiative on Thursday where she herself announced her unique status.

"What do you do with a $2,900 robot dog?

Sony's Aibo won't help wake you up out of bed when it detects daylight. It won't use its internet connection to deliver the morning news report or use its cameras to watch for intruders. Voice commands won't cue up playlists or set reminders or even fetch a pair of slippers on Amazon.

This one-of-a-kind robotic pet doesn't act like other smart-home gadgets. Packed with sensors, cameras and a wagging tail, it instead will trot around your home programmed for just one mission: companionship."

The Root Robotics flagship robot looks a little bit like a miniature hexagonal Roomba — but instead of cleaning up messes, it shows kids how to code. Users can program it to draw, move, and sing through a mobile app. It’s demoing at the Consumer Electronics Show, and 50,000 Root robots will soon be teaching kids Python, JavaScript, and Swift in South Korea via a partnership with after-school coding academy Coding & Play. Starting in June, it will also be available to purchase for $200.

There’s something so special about wooden toys. Kids probably don’t care but parents can appreciate well crafted and designed toys made from wood. Crazy about robots, I was delighted to have the opportunity to play with a loaner Cubetto with my almost 4 year old daughter.

Do your kids think robots are cool? I know mine do. We started off with our wigglebot and wobblebot which both moved in fun ways while more or less staying in the same spot. Then I made a propeller car which moved in a straight line by pushing air with a propeller. The supplies for all of these projects are fairly inexpensive EXCEPT the propeller we used was around $4. Since I’m pretty cheap, I wanted to find a new method of getting a bot traveling without a propeller. This new “robot car” directly attaches the motor to the wheels with a rubberband, so it’s definitely cheaper to make. Also, the googly eyes are really what sell my kids on thinking this is a robot. :)