Robots that are programmable have become a popular avenue for kids to learn Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, usually known as STEM education. Teaching your kids programming is a priority not only for developing their skills to find a job in the market but also for increasing their overall social value in the future since our future will be increasingly dependent upon technology. STEM education through a robot toy is a great way to develop their soft skills and other essential ways to think about a problem. Modern parents are always looking for a way to indulge their kids in STEM education and a robot toy is the best way to achieve that. Don’t forget that robot toys are fun too and you can easily merge STEM education with your kid’s playtime through robot toys. So, how to choose the best robot toy for your kid? Before we answer that question, let's take a look at STEM education briefly.

STEM- What Is It?

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It differs from a traditional teaching approach by integrating all the subjects with real-world scenarios. Instead of focusing only on test performance, STEM influences the teaching approach to develop high-level skills necessary for your kids to become effective problem solvers.

The primary objective of STEM is to develop valuable skills such as collaboration, communication, problem-solving, creative thinking, logical thinking, and other skills that help your kids to become successful personnel irrespective of their choice of field. 

How A Robot Toy and STEM are Integrated?

Today's robot toys are highly customizable compared to the old remote-controlled robot toys. You can assemble the robot toy using building blocks and sensors. These sensors are responsible for gathering the user's input data and feeding it to the robot; thus, the robot performs some action.

For example, if you use a motion sensor when you assemble the robot toy, you can move the robot in three dimensions with much freedom. Like this, various light, sound, color, and distance sensors exist. Your kids thus have multiple options to pick the sensors and creatively build robot toys.

Robot toys give your kid the opportunity to dive deeper into STEM, such as getting to know how the sensor gathers data from the user and makes the robot move in a desired way, the number of blocks required to get a fully structured robot, and where to place the selected robot blocks to get a meaningful structure and program the robot using a programming language to make the robot perform a specific action. It widens your kid's ability. It allows having a different perspective when it comes to solving a problem.

How to Choose the Best Robot Toy for your Kids?

When it comes to choosing a robot toy, you must look for three important things:

• Age category
• Design and functionality of the building blocks
• Presence of an interactive application

Age Category: Do not give your kid too advanced or too simple robot toys. Both situations may lead your kids to lose interest. Always think about your kids and what they are going to learn from it. Your primary objective is to check whether the chosen robot is an add-on to develop your kid’s mental, physical, and emotional health.   

Design and Functionality: Do not give in to the aesthetics of the robot toy. Always make sure that the design and functionality of the robot toy are safe to work and play with. It is best to choose the building blocks with rounded edges for the robot toy. 

Presence of an Interactive Application: Programming a robot toy is a major part of learning STEM education. You have to make a crucial decision on choosing whether your kid wants the Montessori method (purely physical) or your kid wants a robot toy that requires a dedicated application that needs to be installed on your device. It is best to go with robot toys with an application since it will be easier for your kids to seamlessly transition from low-level programming (block coding) to high-level programming (text-based coding). 

Block coding is the primary approach that is used to program robot toys. Kids perform block coding by using the application provided by the robot toy manufacturer. In block coding, you are expected to "drag and drop" the blocks in the working environment. The working environment is nothing but a place where you work your code to get an output. 

For example, if you want to move your robot toy left for 5 meters, a block will be presented on the device's screen through the application you installed. You just have to drag a particular block to move the robot toy and drop it in the working environment to see the desired output in the robot toy. Usually, the blocks are presented on the left-hand side of the screen, and the working environment will be displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Why Botzees Toys is the Best Choice for Robot Toys

Botzees toys is one of the best online robot toy providers based on the STEM educational approach. 

The reason is that their product checks out all the requirements mentioned above. First, they have the age categories, such as, for age 1-3, you can opt for a train block robot kit; for age 3+, there is a variety of options such as animal robot kits and car robot kits; for age 4+, the focus on programming begins. You can choose a bot that can be programmed using various sensors such as light, color, motion, and much more.

Second, the building blocks themselves. They are designed in such a way that all the edges are rounded and bigger than standard building blocks so that your kid can grip the building block well to assemble the toy and also increase the shelf life of the toy.

For age 4+, robot toys allow children to learn program-specific actions. To carry out programming, you must first download the application from Google Playstore or the App Store. You can see the results in real-time with AR (Augmented Reality). Once you connect your robot toy with the application, you can see the robot in the AR environment.

FAQs:

1. What are robot toys?
   Robot toys are made of building blocks and sensors to perform specific actions. Robot toys are beneficial for developing collaboration, communication, and critical and logical thinking skills.
2. What is the preferable age for kids to learn robotics?
   With Botzees toys, you can enroll your kids into robotics from the age of 1. Exposing your kids frequently to the robotic toys will help them to learn STEM deeply and in a fun way.
3. Is block coding suitable for programming a robot toy?
   Yes, block coding is better than text-based coding since it eliminates debugging, which is a big time saver. Second, it is easy to learn; kids can quickly identify the different types of blocks and complete the programming, thanks to clear visual representation.

Conclusion: