It’s Force Friday II! And you know what that means. Yes, yes you’ll feel the Force (of Disney’s marketing muscle tugging at your wallet, no doubt). But if you’re a fan then you’ll find the coolest Star Wars collectibles from companies like Hasbro, Sphero, Lego, Propel and more. Apple’s feeling the Force too, and is offering a host of Star Wars app-enabled droids and battle quadcopter drones.
Your favourite droids like R2-D2 and BB-8 can be coded with commands, built and then reconfigured, trained with an augmented reality Droid Trainer. They can go on missions, as well as interact with and battle each other.
Sphero’s R2-D2 is the latest to gain support of Swift Playgrounds. Kids (and the young at heart) will find a special R2-D2 lesson within Swift Playgrounds, so they can learn to write code to control the droid’s stance, flash its lights, roll and swivel its head, and much more.
Apple’s Swift Playgrounds is a cool iPad app that makes learning and exploring with code fun and easy for kids. Made for kids (12+), it’s a great primer to coding, without prior coding knowledge.
Swift Playgrounds contains built-in lessons and challenges that teach coding fundamentals. Importantly, every lesson is taught using real Swift code. Yes, the same code that’s used to build popular mobile apps today.
The powerful app is not at verion 1.5, and now includes new lessons created by popular device makers to let students program and control popular robots, drones and musical instruments.
Here are some of the available connected toys and Swift Playgrounds:
Sphero App-enabled Droids
- R2-D2 (with Swift Playgrounds integration)
- BB-9E
- BB-8
Little Bits
- Droid Inventor Kit
Propel Quadcopter Drones
- Star Wars Tie Advanced X1 Battle Quadcopter Drone
- Star Wars T-65 X-Wing Starfighter Battle Quadcopter Drone
- Star Wars 74-Z Speeder Bike Battle Quadcopter Drone
Star Wars: Force for Change
From 1-3 September, Apple is donating USD1 to Code.org for every purchase made with Apple Pay at Apple stores in participating countries. Code.org is a non-profit organisation dedicated to increase access to computer science and participation by women and under-represented minorities.
Meet the makers
In San Francisco, London and Singapore Apple stores will be hosting exclusive sessions with Star Wars makers and creators from Industrial Light & Magic.
Apple stores around the world will host new Kids Hour coding sessions with Droids from Star Wars. Stores will also host How To sessions to learn to build your own Star Wars trailer in iMovie.
Check Today at Apple for latest schedules.
And… May The Force Be With You Always!
Header pic: Sphero
