After a successful campaign on Kickstarter and several versions of the design, the Play-i Bo & Yana toys are ready to enter into production. The idea of this project is to get an excellent start into robotics for every child with fun and accessible tools.

The Play-i project was engineered with a great help from children and parents who exchange views in almost all stages of development. With a great set of accessories, features, and an opened platform for developers, both Bo and Yana robots are more likely to be cherished by children with an affinity for intelligent robots.

Two actors: Bo & Yana

The entire project is based on two robots with two different missions: Bo and Yana. The Bo is designed as an explorer robot able to learn new skills and increase its capabilities. With its playful and curious abilities, the Bo is a good partner willing to follow the users wherever they go.

If Bo is the partner with roles for explorations, the Yana plays the storyteller role. The Yana is able to entertain you with your favorite character any time and everywhere. It is a robot designed to be clever, full of imagination and with a great potential in playing a wide range of characters.

Play with Play-i toy

These days we assist at a robotic invasion in our lives and our homes with the Bo and Yana, two robots able to entertain us and understand what we want to do and what game we want to play.

Playing possibilities with these little robots are endless. From playing music, to animation, telling stories, use extensions such as Lego compatible building bricks, and many more possibilities in the spirit of your imagination.

A set of accessories can extend the capabilities of the robots to become a spying tool, a messenger, or a treasure hunter. Using a smartphone and the Smartphone Mount accessory, you are allowed to program the robots and play different games.

If you’re not conquered by all of these possibilities for entertainment and to play games, in the following I explore the specifications and several other resources able to increase the potential in education of the robots.

Specifications

In few words, both Bo and Yana have rechargeable batteries with micro-USB connector for charging, for communication is using the Bluetooth module, and all the actuators and sensors embedded in robots are opened for programmers.

List with components for Bo:

• actuators: two motors for driving and two motors for head pan and tilt;
• speaker: 1 – with customizable sounds;
• sound sensor: 1;
• eye light-ring for emotions: 1;
• full-color ear light: 2;
• tail light:1;
• distance sensor: 3 in front and back;
• accelerometer: 1;
• gyroscope: 1;
• IR detector: 2;
• accessory: 6 attachment points;
• 2 encoders in the base for wheels;
• 2 encoders for precise head position;

List with components for Yana:

• full-color ear light: 2;
• eye light-ring for emotions: 1;
• speaker: 1 – with customizable sounds;
• IR beacon: 4;
• accelerometer: 1;
• accessory: 4 attachment points;

Connectivity

The wires are no longer fashionable and another reason is that sometimes are not practical. Using modern wireless technology such as Bluetooth 4.0, you can connect to both Bo and Yana using a wide range of iOS devices including iPhones, iPads, or iPods, as well as a long list of Android devices including Nexus, Samsung Galaxy or Note series.
The Bo and Yana are accessible wirelessly through a user-friendly interface that allows you to control and program the robots.

There is also an opportunity to build applications compatible with other devices and other operating systems using a series of API’s with support for Bluetooth 4.0.

Programming

Programming the robots is an activity for all ages. For children aged between 5 and 8 years is available a visual programming interface with support for music, animations, or stories. This is an intuitive interface from where any children can learn how to code using a visual interface.

Going forward for children aged between 8 and 12 years, there is available a visual programming interface designed by MIT and Google that let you to program the robots in a technical manner.

For 12+ years old children is preferable to build applications using the iOS or Android devices and a series of APIs that let the user to access the robot capabilities.

The project took shape behind a community of people willing to use robots for entertainment or to teach the children how to program robots. This community will grow for users that use online tools to share, communicate, and change experience using these little robotic toys. Through simple actions any user can share his work with others or learn using the programs available in the sharing platform available on Play-i.

With unlimited resources for programmers, the robots can be programmed using other several programming languages including Scratch or Blockly. At least 100 developers work to produce independent applications for Bo and Yana, and this is another good reason to use these intelligent robots.

Not all children have an easy access to enter in the computer science education, and to make this dream come true, the Play-i shares a part of the profit with schools and organizations for underprivileged children.