Last week we released Let’s Make Shapes Lite!, a free version of our Let’s Make Shapes! iPad application. It has all of the same major functionality as the full version, but with fewer “levels”. If you were looking for an opportunity to try out Let’s Make Shapes before purchasing it, go ahead and download the Lite version. It’s been ranked in the Top 10 Free Educational Apps for the past week!
Be on the lookout for our new iPhone app, scheduled to be released in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek!
Last week we introduced our newest iPad app for young kids, “Let’s Make Shapes”. If you’d like to see how the robot interacts with the app you can check out this new video of Sabrina playing Let’s Make Shapes with Popchilla:
By now you’ve seen both “Blueberry” (the blue robot) and “Key Lime” (the green robot). Which color is your favorite? If you could get a Popchilla in any color, what would you choose?
Print, Snicker-snack, Fold,
Look whose paper face appears-
Puppet Popchilla!
What’s this haiku about? When Interbots went to the NY Toy Fair earlier this year, we wanted a small printed teaser takeaway to handout to our booth visitors. We created a fun halfsheet that could be folded up into a finger puppet Popchilla. You can’t get a real Popchilla robot yet, but you can download, print, and fold your own origami alternative!
We’ve been watching with fascination as more and more videos of toddlersplayingwithiPads have been hitting the internet. Our latest iPad app, Let’s Make Shapes, was designed for these youngest iPad fans. Let’s Make Shapes reinforces basic shape and color recognition in a creative and collaborative way.
In Trace mode Popchilla asks the child to trace basic shapes in various colors, offering praise when the child does it correctly and encouragement when a mistake is made:
In Picture mode Popchilla walks the child through drawing a mystery picture, one shape at a time:
Draw mode allows kids to use the palette to create their own pictures:
At any time children can press the Camera button to capture a screenshot of their drawing. You can purchase Let’s Make Shapes for the low, low price of $1.99. Give it a spin and let us know what you think. We’d love to see what your children create!
One more thing – our next app is already in the works. And by popular request, this one’s for the iPhone. Stay tuned for more details!
We’ve previously shared the physical remote that comes with Popchilla, allowing anyone to easily puppeteer him right out of the box. But it’s not the only way to puppeteer Popchilla.
This is Make Believe Theater, a Flash-based software application that enables different levels of interaction and content creation with Popchilla. This post will talk primarily about “Puppet Mode.”
The main component of Make Believe Theater is the “Virtual Rig” of Popchilla. By clicking and dragging on the virtual rig, kids can directly manipulate the head, ears, and arms of the virtual character. Kids can also plug the remote into a USB port on their computer and use it as an input device to puppeteer virtual Popchilla. If Popchilla (the robot) is within wireless range of the remote, it will move concurrently with virtual Popchilla.
Behind the Virtual Rig is the Backdrop. Kids can click on it to select from a library of fun backdrop images or even import their own pictures to use as backdrops for their puppet show.
At the bottom of the Puppet Mode screen is the “Toolbox”, which includes the Emotion Map. This Emotion Map is a simplified version of the one in our Guided Performance Interface for puppeteering Quasi & Moxi. By clicking and dragging on the Emotion Map kids control what emotion Popchilla is expressing. The left corner of the Toolbox is occupied with the microphone controls. In the left corner of the Toolbox are the microphone controls. Kids can use the computer’s mic (or an external mic, like the one found in the remote) to give Popchilla a voice. Popchilla’s mouth will move automatically in time to the microphone input which can be pitch shifted to one of four settings.
In the center of the Toolbox is the Animation Bin. Kids can click on the buttons in this bin to trigger animations on Popchilla such as waving, nodding, or dancing. Make Believe Theater comes with an initial set of animations for kids to use but one of the cool things about these animations is that they can be created and edited right in Make Believe Theater. In fact, kids can do a lot more than just puppeteer Popchilla with Make Believe Theater – they can record, edit, remix, share, download, and watch content! A future post will showcase some of these more advanced features.
One of the most exciting things about Popchilla is that he can interact with a wide variety of hardware devices. In fact, any hardware device that can transmit wireless commands, such as a PC, smartphone, iPad, or DS/PSP can control Popchilla. Pretty neat, right?
About a month ago we began developing short, targeted apps for the Popchilla platform to explore what these interactions might be like. The first of these is “Let’s Do Math!”, an iPad app for kids 7+ focused on exercising basic arithmetic skills.
The interaction with Popchilla in Let’s Do Math! is pretty straightforward – he gives you feedback on your progress throughout the game with audio and animations, and even has a few little surprises while he waits for you to figure out the answers!
You can download Let’s Do Math! for free from the iTunes store. Popchilla isn’t available for purchase just yet so you won’t be able to play with the robot, but you can still try to get to level 20! When you’re finished checking out the app, we’d appreciate it if you left us a rating and comment in the iTunes store.
These apps are pretty simple for now; we plan to keep developing them based on interest and feedback so if you have any thoughts or suggestions, send them our way! What kind of games do you want to play with a robot?
Also, take a look at our new games webpage for sneak peeks at the upcoming apps…
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