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Sphero Central: Edu Lessons & Resources for Coding Robots & STEM Kits

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Welcome to Sphero Central, your one-stop destination for Sphero Edu & app access, lessons, educator resources & more. Get started with your robots & kits here!

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On our first day of Sphero in the Art room, we had three stations set up. Painting, Water, and the Dark Room. We realized that this was a bit difficult to get a good rotation for our older kids so we chose to add one more station, we called it the Trick Station. We were by this time running out of space, so the area that we used was the carpet where we have the kids come in and sit at the start of class. Once instruction was complete I asked the students to help me set up this station.

We had to come up with something to contain the Sphero. So, of course, we went down to visit the Phy Ed department. They had these bumpers for bowling... they collapsed easy and set up easy. They were perfect! Students would start out here by driving the Sphero but then we put these amazing jumps in... And the crowd goes wild!!!

It was a bit difficult for the kids to make the jump, but you knew when they did because we heard cheers from that station! This very simple station was the favorite for many students.

We also used this area for a wrap up for some groups. Especially our youngest students, it was good to have a bunch of 'time killers' that were Sphero related. Sometimes when we ended a few minutes early we would show off Sphero tricks. In the app that we asked the students to use ( click here), there are missions that we asked our students to avoid because the goal today was to learn to drive. So at the end, we would show them some of the pre-programed 'tricks' that Sphero can do like, an Irish Jig, the Nutcracker Dance, a Touchdown Dance, a frog, and so much more. By the 30th section of teaching this same lesson we had created stories to go with all of these tricks. My partner Alysia was amazing at this part of instruction! She made me laugh... and the kids too :)

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On our first day of Sphero in the Art room, we had three stations set up. Painting, Water, and the Dark Room. We realized that this was a bit difficult to get a good rotation for our older kids so we chose to add one more station, we called it the Trick Station.

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I was amazed how popular this station was with every class. When my partner in Sphero, Alysia told me that the Sphero is waterproof, I had to celebrate that in some way during this week of Sphero. The morning of the first set-up brought me down to the Kindergarten team. I know they have kiddie pools on hand for later in the year when they hatch chicken eggs.

We filled the pool half way and added some ping pongs ball for interest. The ping pong balls became part of the play at this station. Some students tried to move the ping pong balls with their Sphero. They played tag with the Sphero and they explored the challenge of direction and speed in water. This station really led to some amazing conversation about density, drag, and viscous.

Since the goal of this day was to learn how to drive the Sphero, we asked the students to keep the speed down to 50% or lower. The water station was the only area that the kids could crank up the speed to 100% and that brought so much joy to the students.

Water was a great addition to Sphero week!

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I was amazed how popular this station was with every class. When my partner in Sphero, Alysia told me that the Sphero is waterproof, I had to celebrate that in some way during this week of Sphero. The morning of the first set-up brought me down to the Kindergarten team.

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One of the best part of Sphero is that they have lights... lights that can be changed. I wanted to make sure that we highlighted this at a station. So I create a 'dark room' for students to explore this.

This was my set up. I shared with the Sphero painting that I asked my husband to make me a frame. Here you see my 11 year-old son's creation for a frame. I set up two tables and I used the glass from a display case to put across the tables like a bridge. Then I used sheets to cover the tables.

The kids loved being under the tables. Even my 5th graders found ways to fit under in the 'dark room'.

I think the number one game played under here was tag. It was fun to hear them yelling out the colors of who was it.

The glass on the top served two purposes. One, I used it as a window into the activities below It was easy to see if students were 'doing their job'. Two, I placed my iPad on the glass and allowed students to take pictures using the Slow Shutter Speed App. It took pictures like what you see below.

On the very last day, we also found that the app worked well in the light too. You do need to have a very still camera, but Awesome results!!

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One of the best part of Sphero is that they have lights... lights that can be changed. I wanted to make sure that we highlighted this at a station. So I create a 'dark room' for students to explore this. This was my set up.

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When talking about using Sphero in the Art room, our first thought was to paint with them. In our research of robots, we have seen Sphero used in paintings. This was what connected this tool to the Art room initially. This is how we did it!

We first decided we needed a frame to contain the Sphero when painting with it. I brought this up to my genius husband and he came up with this amazing solution. By adding the notches to the boards, we were able to take apart and assemble with ease.

We placed paper under the area where we would be painting and then rolled out the paper. The first day we taped it down to the floor but found that it was best to tape it to the frame. The kids would sit on the paper and move it around, so taping it to the frame helped.

From everything we read online, it appears that people just plop the Sphero in paint. We wanted to give the Sphero a little protection so we wrapped them with Press'n Seal. It helped to protect the Sphero from getting a lot of paint in the little grooves but it made the robot very sticky. A little GooGone got rid of the adhesive and they ended up looking nice and clean again. We did not put the wrapped Sphero on the charger because there is a slight heat that comes off from the charger. We didn't want to melt the plastic (I'm not sure it would have, but we played it safe). We used Tempera Paint. It was a perfect medium for this project.

We placed a plastic bag down with tape to the paper. This was the only place that we added the paint. We found that it gave a lot of protection to the blobs of wet paint. We rolled out the paper once in the morning, allowed 5 classes to add to it, and then we let it dry like that over night. We then removed the paper and did it all over again the next day, for 6 days so every student could have the opportunity.

And then they painted... they laughed when they rolled the Sphero through the paint. They loved every minute of this challenge. Some students were very specific in driving the Sphero, and others just had fun watching to see where it would go with little to no thought on how to drive. ALL students had fun!! All students were engaged.

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When talking about using Sphero in the Art room, our first thought was to paint with them. In our research of robots, we have seen Sphero used in paintings. This was what connected this tool to the Art room initially. This is how we did it!