Learning Resources Artie 3000™ Coding and Drawing Toy for Kids, Educational Insights. Perfect For Beginner and Advanced Coders, Geometry., Maths, Design, Built-in Wi-Fi Server

Please be aware not optimised for tablets especially my daughters which is an amazon fire. If you have a comparable device I’m sure it would be excellent well made and fun for children

Granddaughter loved it

It didn't work at all. Too late to return, Try it straight away!

Its a cute design but for our first programming thing it was a bit of a challange. I was expecting to open a app and off you go but no ,firstly you got to insert four AA batterys that are not supplied. You then got to insert a pen just right . There is four pens included . You then got to go to wifi settings and connect to artie who sets his own wifi spot. Maybe if we read all the instructions insted of just briefing then we would have seen it easier but you then fgot to go to a webpage to connect to artie. Once on the web page its a case of dragging and dropping commands of what you want artie to do luckily for us there is quite a few pre programmed so we had fun seeing what these were. There is cards included which includes 3 levels easy ,medium and hard. My sons managed to do easy one but its somthing you need alot of time and patient i look forward to our programming journey with artie . The toy itself is very robust seems well made definatly aimed for older children my 8 year old copes with the easy .

This is a gift so don't know much about it yet

Disappointing ‘app’ controls for it. It works. But by no means is the website where you control it optimised. It’s kinda what I would expect 5-10 years ago. Once you’ve filled the screen with commands on your iPad - which is about 7 commands. Then you’re doing all these weird workarounds to put anything at the bottom of the list of commands and if that doesn’t put you off. The grabbing of commands to put them in place is janky you have to hold them for a moment before you move them as it doesn’t register the ‘click’ straight away. Yet sometimes it just randomly flings it up the screen and messes with the entire order of commands. There’s no back/undo button. So good luck fixing that. Oh yeah no rechargeable battery is weird. It uses micro USB which is very ‘last gen’. I’m half tempted to send it back. But also really can’t be bothered. Would I buy this again? No There is probably much better devices out there. That will not cause you or your kid(s) a headache to control.

The Artie 3000 robot from Learning Resources is a well-judged tech-toy that manages to be cute and quite fun but also has some depth for kids (or adults) that want to learn basic programming skills. Put simply, Artie can draw any pattern or word you can programme into him and you even get a choice of methods and scripting languages to use. He comes with 4 felt-tip pens but you can use any that fit — they need to have a quite thick barrel so he can grab hold of them — and he can be programmed to lift/drop the pen onto the paper surface below, so you don’t have to draw everything with a single continuous line. Once you fit the 4 AA batteries (not supplied) Artie needs he creates his own wi-fi hotspot and you then connect your tablet or computer to that and load the inbuilt webpage user-interface. There’s no app to run and having the UI presented as a webpage means you can use a wide range of devices to control him, though the smaller screens on most smartphones might be a bit awkward. You can also connect Artie to your existing wi-if network but I couldn’t see a way to control him this way, I’m guessing this connection might only be used for downloading firmware updates (though that didn’t work for me either). The web UI lets you ‘Remote Control‘ Artie by drawing a design onscreen which he will immediately copy onto paper, which is a good way to start The UI isn’t particularly child-friendly and looks a bit dry and serious but once you start exploring it becomes logical. The real point is to learn basic programming techniques by creating a script which details the movements Artie has to make to draw your desired shape. This is simple enough, just strings of commands like “pen down, move forward 50mm, turn 90˚ right, move forward 100mm, pen up…etc etc” but creating more complex shapes or spelling out words takes a bit of patience and lateral thinking. You can preview the scripts onscreen before sending them to Artie, so you don’t have to waste sheaves of paper perfecting things. Once your script is finished it can be saved in your library of programs for running or editing later, Artie can only store and run one program at a time. Artie is a quiet and precise little fellow and can draw out quite complex designs and most of the time you won’t need paper sheets bigger than A4. He can go wandering if you make a mistake in your program so you might want to have newspaper or a wipeable surface underneath. The felt-tip pens supplied are washable but beware that others may not be and Artie doesn’t care what he’s drawing on, he just does what he’s told. Also note that the paper can sometimes move beneath him while he works so holding or taping it down is advisable. If his owner wants to get more advanced there’s support within the UI for Python scripting too, so there’s room to grow here too. Younger kids will probably love watching him draw but they’re going to need a bit of adult or sibling help to create their own custom programs for him. The interface makes this fairly easy, it’s fun learning and then watching him create your finished design is very satisfying. It’s a good intro to programming theory but it’s fun enough that it doesn’t feel like schoolwork.

What a nightmare - not fit for purpose Made the classic mistake of buying as a Christmas gift. It didn't get opened immediately so didn't find out soon enough how hard it is to get it to work. So months later.... We tried 1. The WiFi is very flaky. Very hard to get it to connect and stay connected even when right next to it. 2. It will not work with Chrome. No idea why but it just doesn't. In desperation I tried Firefox and Duck Duck which were more successful. 3. When you do eventually get it to wake up you realise the coding page doesn't display properly on a phone. Poor Web design 4. Before you can download instructions you are expected to do a firmware upgrade. But that will only work with a direct connection using a data cable to a Windows pc. They don't supply a data cable so you have to find one and you have guess whether it us data compatible or just a power cable (which will not work). For goodness sake, supply a data cable. 5. Eventually you give up on firmware and print out the get started sheet. Why don't they print the quick start instructions and put them in the box? That would be so obvious. 6. When eventually you connect to it and it comes to life, the control buttons on the coding page are not easy to activate and the coding is not very intuitive. 7. I have not actually coded anything yet but maybe eventually you can get it going. In summary it has taken me over 3 weeks and a lot of frustration to bring this thing to life. Far past the return period so it can't now go back . I'm pretty good with IT and more persistent than most at trying to get things to work. If you are going to market this as suitable for 7 year olds it has to work first time, straight out of the box, on every device, operating system and browser imaginable. If not, you need to publish serious compatibility warnings. Seriously, this thing is such a good idea but is just not fit for purpose. Do yourself a favour. Don't buy it