21st Century Skills InnovatIon LIbrary M a k e rS as Innovators Dash and Dot Cherry Lake PubLishing ann arbor MiChigan by kamya Sarma
MakerS as innovators Chapter 1 Meet Dash and Dot H ave you ever wished your toys could do more Wouldn’t it be cool if they could move talk sing or dance whenever you wanted them to If this sounds interesting you might be interested in Dash and Dot These toy robots are made by a company called Wonder Workshop When you first meet Dash and Dot you can use remote control apps on a tablet Dash and Dot are toy robots you can program and play with 44
Did You Know People have been building robot-like devices for thousands of years Around 350 BCE a mathematician named Archytas built an artificial pigeon It was made of wood powered by steam and could fly only about 656 feet 200 meters before it ran out of energy Robots have come a long way since then or phone to play with them As you get more comfort able you can start using a programming language like Blockly to make your robots do a lot more Before we jump in and understand how to use Dash and Dot let’s learn a little about robots You may already have a favorite movie robot like the friendly Baymax from Big Hero 6 or BB-8 from Star Wars Robots in movies often look and behave a lot like people Sometimes they even have emotions In real life very few robots look or act like human beings Robots are machines that are designed to do a particular job or follow commands that we give them They come in all different shapes and sizes They don’t have to breathe eat or sleep like people do That makes it possible for them to do difficult things like exploring the depths of the oceans or the surfaces of distant planets Robots also work much faster than humans and never feel tired This makes them very good at factory jobs that people find boring to do 5 Dash anD Dot
