Rugged Robot

Rugged Robot is the programmable floor robot for lessons that leave the carpet. Where a Bee-Bot needs a smooth indoor surface, Rugged Robot is built to drive over grass, sand, bark chips and playground concrete, so directional programming can be taught on the scale of a school oval instead of a desk mat.

It suits older primary students for the same reason. A memory of up to 256 steps means programs are long enough to be genuinely worth planning on paper first, and three selectable speeds let you slow the robot down while students are debugging, then speed it up for a timed challenge.

Worth knowing before you buy

• Three control methods — buttons on the robot itself, the TTS Tactile Reader for screen-free coding, or a tablet or iPad over Bluetooth
• Obstacle sensor that can be switched off — when on, the robot detects an obstacle ahead, reverses and rotates 45 degrees before continuing the program
• USB rechargeable — roughly three hours to a full charge, giving about an hour of use

Being able to turn the obstacle sensor off is a useful teaching move: students first see the robot handle the problem for them, then take responsibility for avoiding the obstacle in their own code.