Build a loyal robotic reptile buddy that responds to your gestures, changes colors, and automatically fires and retracts its tongue! This first-of-its-kind robotic chameleon is equipped with a color sensor, infrared sensor, and RGB LEDs that allow you to code and program it in three unique play modes. In Coding Mode, you’ll use the included colorful action cards to program your pet to carry out a series of movements. In Wild Mode, the chameleon will camouflage and turn into the color of its surroundings, stalk possible prey, and shoot its tongue out at objects that might be a yummy treat! Finally, in Pet Mode, your robot pal gets friendly, walking around searching for you and showing its excitement when you pet it. In addition to learning how the robotic components are utilized in real-life devices, you’ll also gain insight into how biomimicry looks to natural and organic systems to inspire, improve, and solve engineering design challenges.
Thames & Kosmos My Robotic Pet: Coding Chameleon STEM Building & Experiment Kit
Original price was: $54.95.$39.97Current price is: $39.97.
BUILD, CODE, PLAY & LEARN: Construct a robotic reptile pal that responds to your gestures, changes colors, and automatically fires and retracts its tongue!
INNOVATIVE ENGINEERING: The expertly designed 15-inch-long model includes articulated eyes, torso, and leg joints to simulate realistic movements.
FULLY EQUIPPED FOR UNPLUGGED CODING LESSONS: The robot utilizes a color sensor, infrared sensor, and RGB LEDs that allow kids to use physical colored action cards to program the robot to move and react in different ways; no screens, devices, or software required!
THREE UNIQUE PLAY MODES: In Coding Mode, use the action cards to program your pet to carry out a series of movements; in Wild Mode, your chameleon will camouflage and change its color to match its surroundings; in Pet Mode, this one-of-a-kind robotic reptile reacts to your touch!
AUTHENTIC LEARNING WITH COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE: The 48-page manual guides kids through assembly (ages 8+ with help from an adult; 12+ for independent play), encourages exploration of robotic components, and teaches about how nature can inspire, improve, and solve engineering design problems.
| Feature | AUTHENTIC LEARNING WITH COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE: The 48-page manual guides kids through assembly (ages 8+ with help from an adult; 12+ for independent play), encourages exploration of robotic components, and teaches about how nature can inspire, improve, and solve engineering design problems. |
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Amazon Customer –
Awesome toy
really cool, bought for my nephew and he loved it
Stephanie Seay –
Stim activity
Cool toy
2 people found this helpful
Lisa Reynolds –
Good quality
My Granddaughter loves this…. It’s good quality.
2 people found this helpful
J&S –
Long build but cool STEM project
This kit is a fun STEM project, but definitely not a solo build for kids. It ended up being more of an adult build with kids watching and sort of helping. There are a ton of tiny parts, wires, screws, etc., that can get complicated in a hurry. The book that comes with it tries to be depict it as best as possible but it can get confusing at points. Never used the video walk through and only used the book. Once finished, the chameleon looks great and has some fun features—color-changing belly, tongue movement, and simple coding cards. The coding isn’t super advanced and can be a little glitchy, but my kids still think it’s awesome. Price point is so-so and I would not leave this in the hands of a kid who is tough on toys as it may not hold up. Overall, a very challenging but rewarding project best for older kids with adult help.
10 people found this helpful
Lynn S. Shapiro –
Creative and Fun
My 8-year-old granddaughter was able to create a variety of designs and animals by following the directions on her own.
Cameron –
Mixed feelings about this simple toy and chore
I have mixed feelings about this toy.First: the level of assembly required was much higher than seems appropriate for a toy. The pieces can’t be reused in new toys, so it’s not like a building block set. You snap the plastic pieces off of a series of mold frames, sand them a bit, and attach them with screws. It’s a very intricate toy with many very small parts, wire pathing, and super tiny screws, and it takes hours to assemble, across dozens of pages of instructions. The notion an 8 year old child is going to do this is amusing, but of course parental involvement is expected.The toy is larger than expected at around the size of an adult’s foot (the manual says 15 inches, but some of that is the tail). Once assembled, your chameleon is nicely detailed. About a fifth of the chameleon is part of the tummy area, which is white, and has a light inside that will match cards or other stimulus. This isn’t really camouflage, and the toy doesn’t blend in with anything, but it kinda matches things around it, which my kids did find very entertaining. Put the lizard on a blue counter, and the stomach area shows a blue light.You also have cards with other instructions for the lizard, which is a car on four wheels, to roll around, rotate around, go backwards, etc. You can give it a series of these instructions and it should go through them, but we had trouble getting it to work reliably. At any rate, notice that it’s not like the lizard walks around, jumps, or has any robotic features like that. It’s a car with plastic (dead and unmotorized) limbs sticking out that only articulate when pushed around. It does have a ‘tongue’ spear thing too.The toy is not very durable, and I worry that with assembly being difficult, fixing it would also be an inevitable problem. Losing a screw or a leg probably won’t change the robot too much. I don’t know what the educational value is here. I get that lizards can change color to camouflage, but this is merely a tribute to that activity. It’s nothing like how that process works in nature. I suppose if the adult does the assembly, and later a kid gets to play, that is fun for them, but that’s no different from buying a working toy off the shelf. There is essentially no educational value to the assembly or even the ‘coding’ process (given the low reliability of that process and the extremely simple ‘robot’).I don’t mind toys where assembly is part of the fun, buy this is more of assembly to skip the manufacturing cost because running the wires through the intricate body is a very precise task. I also think this toy, fully assembled would be worth a small fraction of the list price, and be much more fun.I do not see the value here, but it’s a large lizard that does most of what it’s advertised.
21 people found this helpful
Mom to 4/TeacherMom to 4/Teacher –
Great learning toy, good instructions, LOTS of adult help needed (10 year old)!
*Unfinished build, will come back and update review when done*We are still working on building this but I figured I’d go ahead and write my review because this will take a few months haha. I wanted to wait till it was done todo a true, full review but yeah, taking way longer than expected so I’ll go ahead now.So….wow! What a fun toy! I was so happy to get this for my 10 year old son and he LOVES it! I’ve always been a big fan of Thames and Kosmos kits and have bought a few over the years for my daughter, so I’m glad my son has a chance to try one out now too!So first off….100% adult help is needed. I think even a 12 year old would need adult help…my son is almost 11 and needed full help with everything. He helped me read instructions and find parts but for the most part it was me snapping things on and determining the right direction to place everything. My son would read the instructions and try to tell me a certain part goes a certain way but he was off. Oh, and he couldn’t snap the parts off the bases, he needed me to do a lot of them (some he was afraid to do himself because he was afraid he’d break them, but the plastic is very durable. Others he tried his best and couldn’t snap them off). There are just sooooo many details and instructions and soooo many tiny parts. Even me as an adult I sometimes needed both video and instruction booklet help to make sure I was doing certain tricky parts right. Which by the way I’m extremely thankful for the video instructions and I advise anyone having trouble to use them (along with the booklet, at certain times the video was more helpful and certain times the book was more helpful).It’s coming together very slowly, I think we’re about 15% done so far, we’ve had it about a month but admittedly only worked on it a few times. It’s just hard to find the time/motivation after work because as I said he needs full help and it takes a lot to set everything up and get started and maintain my own motivation throughout (no shortage of motivation on my son’s part haha he keeps asking when we can do more).I wish I could review functionality etc but I’ll try to come back later after we’re done so I can review how well the chameleon works. My son read up on how it will work and can’t wait to actually get to play with it!
11 people found this helpful
jbrown –
Cheap parts and overly complicated assembly
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The parts are in plastic sheets so you have to shave off the little nubbins that remain. Even with doing that, I spent all day putting this together with my son. Hours! Gears are still not catching. To go back inside the front gearbox to fix it is going to be a nightmare.At first, I gave three stars. And brought it down to two and then the one when this has become increasingly difficult to fix it. We are returning it. Wasted almost the whole day and upset my kid.
3 people found this helpful
Megan –
Skip this one ☹️
NOT durable at all. The pieces break very easily. It has a million pieces to put together and they’re on a pop tab sheet. So, you have to sand off eat little burr. If you get one piece wrong and turn it on the cheap plastic pieces will break.
CharlieCharlie –
*Pending final edit for review* Great customer service!
**This review is pending a final edit**At first glance, this robot/project seems like it will be fun to put together, and I can’t wait to see the final result! However, the most frustrating part is the parts are all still attached to the plastic sheets to be punched out and sanded/polished on your own. For an item this expensive, I would sort of expect the pieces to be ready to go. It has made assembly 3 times longer than it needs to be. Although my 7 year-old and I started out working on this together, this made him frustrated halfway through, leaving me to finish on my own. Which, that’s fine. The assembly just isn’t quite as fun for a kid as a puzzle – but I’m enjoying it. Also, it requires some tools that don’t come with it, so do be aware you’re going to need clippers (I used wire clippers), emery board or sandpaper, batteries, and I’ll include more with my update.The reason I am unable to finish my review at this moment is one of the important pieces snapped during assembly. I don’t know if it was necessarily the part that wasn’t soldered properly, or if I just need to be more careful of wire placement inside the robot next time. The amazing part of this was, after I reached out to the manufacturer, they got back to me almost immediately and offered to send a replacement part, free of charge! And their website, where this is easily accomplished, is very customer-oriented. I’m so pleased with this aspect. Once I get the part in, I will finish the product and have more info.As for now, it seems to function as it should in an incomplete state, and I’m having a bit of fun in assembly (minus the detaching parts, as mentioned). The manual is very thorough with pictures and tips. More than any other company I’ve used! Stay tuned for my final updated review.
One person found this helpful
J&S –
Long build but cool STEM project
This kit is a fun STEM project, but definitely not a solo build for kids. It ended up being more of an adult build with kids watching and sort of helping. There are a ton of tiny parts, wires, screws, etc., that can get complicated in a hurry. The book that comes with it tries to be depict it as best as possible but it can get confusing at points. Never used the video walk through and only used the book. Once finished, the chameleon looks great and has some fun features—color-changing belly, tongue movement, and simple coding cards. The coding isn’t super advanced and can be a little glitchy, but my kids still think it’s awesome. Price point is so-so and I would not leave this in the hands of a kid who is tough on toys as it may not hold up. Overall, a very challenging but rewarding project best for older kids with adult help.
10 people found this helpful
J&S –
Long build but cool STEM project
This kit is a fun STEM project, but definitely not a solo build for kids. It ended up being more of an adult build with kids watching and sort of helping. There are a ton of tiny parts, wires, screws, etc., that can get complicated in a hurry. The book that comes with it tries to be depict it as best as possible but it can get confusing at points. Never used the video walk through and only used the book. Once finished, the chameleon looks great and has some fun features—color-changing belly, tongue movement, and simple coding cards. The coding isn’t super advanced and can be a little glitchy, but my kids still think it’s awesome. Price point is so-so and I would not leave this in the hands of a kid who is tough on toys as it may not hold up. Overall, a very challenging but rewarding project best for older kids with adult help.
10 people found this helpful
J&S –
Long build but cool STEM project
This kit is a fun STEM project, but definitely not a solo build for kids. It ended up being more of an adult build with kids watching and sort of helping. There are a ton of tiny parts, wires, screws, etc., that can get complicated in a hurry. The book that comes with it tries to be depict it as best as possible but it can get confusing at points. Never used the video walk through and only used the book. Once finished, the chameleon looks great and has some fun features—color-changing belly, tongue movement, and simple coding cards. The coding isn’t super advanced and can be a little glitchy, but my kids still think it’s awesome. Price point is so-so and I would not leave this in the hands of a kid who is tough on toys as it may not hold up. Overall, a very challenging but rewarding project best for older kids with adult help.
10 people found this helpful
J&S –
Long build but cool STEM project
This kit is a fun STEM project, but definitely not a solo build for kids. It ended up being more of an adult build with kids watching and sort of helping. There are a ton of tiny parts, wires, screws, etc., that can get complicated in a hurry. The book that comes with it tries to be depict it as best as possible but it can get confusing at points. Never used the video walk through and only used the book. Once finished, the chameleon looks great and has some fun features—color-changing belly, tongue movement, and simple coding cards. The coding isn’t super advanced and can be a little glitchy, but my kids still think it’s awesome. Price point is so-so and I would not leave this in the hands of a kid who is tough on toys as it may not hold up. Overall, a very challenging but rewarding project best for older kids with adult help.
10 people found this helpful
J&S –
Long build but cool STEM project
This kit is a fun STEM project, but definitely not a solo build for kids. It ended up being more of an adult build with kids watching and sort of helping. There are a ton of tiny parts, wires, screws, etc., that can get complicated in a hurry. The book that comes with it tries to be depict it as best as possible but it can get confusing at points. Never used the video walk through and only used the book. Once finished, the chameleon looks great and has some fun features—color-changing belly, tongue movement, and simple coding cards. The coding isn’t super advanced and can be a little glitchy, but my kids still think it’s awesome. Price point is so-so and I would not leave this in the hands of a kid who is tough on toys as it may not hold up. Overall, a very challenging but rewarding project best for older kids with adult help.
10 people found this helpful