Edison

Edison, the robot, not the man (https://meetedison.com/  https://twitter.com/MeetEdison  ) is a little, $50, self contained robot that has 2 motors/wheels, Left&Right light sensors, a clap sensor, a buzzer, a line follower, L&R infrared LED’s, and L&R LED’s. It is about the size of the palm of an adult hand.

It can communicate with other Edison’s. You can build on it using Lego’s. They have an EdCreate pack of small building parts available for $29 (https://meetedison.com/product/edcreate-edison-robot-creators-kit/ ). I did not get this pack. You can program it with barcodes and remote control, as well as their own browser based versions of blocks, scratch, and python (EdBlocks, EdScratch, EdPy). You can use a computer or tablet to program. You will need to create an account to save & share programs. An interesting quirk is that the program is transferred via sound, so they have a special audio cable. Edison runs on 4 AAA batteries (the audio cable comes tucked inside the battery compartment).

They have a nice “getting started” document
https://meetedison.com/content/Get-started-with-Edison-guide-English.pdf )
They also have support documents for each of the coding platforms, including teaching guides, student sheets, many example codes, even videos.
https://meetedison.com/robot-programming-software/  
This is organized by platform.
Or you can access their youtube channel for all the videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/microbric/playlists   

After you have created a program in EdBlocks , EdScratch , or EdPy ,   (is you Edison on and connected? You should see two flashing lights),  you click “Program Edison” in the top right of the browser, it creates a .wav file. Press the record button on the Edison once, (Edison lights should go solid), press “Program Edison” in the pop up dialogue box. Listen for the “modem” sound of the file transferring. The lights should go back to flashing when it is programmed. Unhook and press “play”.

It is easy to get started. It is already built, though you can build complex devices using blocks. It moves, or turns things you attach to the wheels. It has some sensors. It has two lights. It plays music. It can be programmed multiple ways. They have good support documents and sample codes. It will automatically turn off after 5 minutes of unuse.

At $50 it is the same price as a Sphero mini….so which is “better”?  Always depends on what you are trying to accomplish, but I think this offers more with the sensors and ability to build different things out of it (an ice cream truck, a crane, a printer, monster with waving arms…) as well as program in 3 different platforms. It is browser based, so it needs Internet connection. I ordered mine on Amazon, though if you go through their website you can get bulk discounts.

One similar program in the three coding platforms :
(Python is definitely a learning curve ; definitely need the help documents for syntax)