Roamer / floor turtle - alternatives?

[hughcharlesparker]

I've been trying to buy some Valiant Roamers for more than a year now, but they're no longer answering their phone, and Companies House now lists them as "Active - Proposal to Strike off" - so I think they've gone bust.

 

Can anyone suggest an alternative? The way our ICT planning works, we need a product that has a repeat function, and deals with rotation in terms of degrees, rather than whole right-angles.

[Edu-IT]

Primary or secondary?

[hughcharlesparker]

Primary. We use three tools, to give us a good progression:

 

- Nursery, reception and year 1 use bee-bots - simple physical machines which you can tell to go forward, backward, left and right.

- Years 2, 3 & 4 use roamers - again, a physical machine - like the bee-bots, but with repeat, and rotation in degrees, so the kids can program them to do squares, octagons, etc.

- Years 5 & 6 use a logo program on the computer.

[pavlovs_dog]

I spoke to Valiant about two weeks ago; they said that they had to recall all Roamer Too devices due to a manufacturing fault and that they would be available for delivery in May. Now I don't know if I was just being fobbed off or not.

[sparkeh]

If you are already using Bee bots how about using Pro bots?

[Edu-IT]

If you are already using Bee bots how about using Pro bots?

That was going to be my suggestion.

[hughcharlesparker]

I rang and asked TTS about probots, but I was told that they can't do rotation in degrees, only in whole right-angles.

 

In other news: I spent most of this morning phoning Valiant's number, and they finally picked up the phone, so it turns out they are still in business after all. They now say they're expecting to deliver the Roamers in June.

[sparkeh]

I rang and asked TTS about probots, but I was told that they can't do rotation in degrees, only in whole right-angles.

 

That's odd because on their own website:

 

TTS website

Most commands can take a numeric parameter up to 999 if you want. So move forward up to 999 cms in one command, or rotate up to 999 degrees in one command.

 

I'll see if I can lay my hands on one.

[sparkeh]

Just read the Pro-Bot manual and it is not limited to 90 degree turns, you can enter any number you want.

If you want manual to verify I can send it over.

[bladedanny]

We have a ProBot, it does do turning in degrees. It's fun to play with also.

[hughcharlesparker]

Thanks Sparkeh. I'll PM you with my email address.

[hughcharlesparker]

...except that I can't PM you until I've made 5 posts in the forums. Sigh. Here's a gratuitous post to boost my post count.

[powdarrmonkey]

email him. You're going to reveal your address anyway, so it doesn't make any difference.

[hughcharlesparker]

@Powdarrmonkey - I'd forgotten I could do that - oops. It clearly would have been the sensible option. Oh well, too late now.

[hughcharlesparker]

Sparkeh sent me a link to the Probot manual - here's the link, for anyone else who finds this thread:

http://www.tts-group.co.uk/_RMVirtual/Media/Downloads/ProBot2_UserGuide.pdf

[TronXP]

Can anyone verify if the probotix software works on windows 7?

[pagelad]

We just bought 2 x Bigtraks from play for £17.99 each

[powdarrmonkey]

I got a Bigtrak for my birthday the other week ^_^

[zx2012]

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