Pixel turns smartphones and tablets into programmable robots

There have been a few programmable-robot toys for children in the last couple of years, and while they can be really fun and educational, they can also be really expensive. Or at least out of the budgets of many families.

That’s one reason I’m drawn to a new app called Pixel, which has been created by a company called Robot Playtime. It uses the same idea, a robot that children control by stringing together coding commands, but the robot is a device that you already own: a smartphone or tablet.

“Pixel starts off without any intelligence or emotion, so it’s up to you to program some personality and life into the robot,” explains its listing on the iOS and Android app stores.

“Using a drag-and-drop blocked-based programming language (Scratch), fun interactions can be programmed, such as changing Pixel’s emotions and controlling Pixel’s speech.”

It may not have all the features of a physical robot, but Pixel looks like a fun way to see how your children adapt to the idea of taking control of something by coding — which in turn may help you decide whether it’s worth investing in one of the more expensive models.

That said, I’ll be keen to see how Pixel develops too: the more freedom children are given to control the character on their smartphone or tablet, the more interesting ideas they’ll come up with.

Pixel is a free download for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, and a free download for Android from the Google Play store.