2017's biggest hi-tech trend in toyland is the proliferation of programmable gadgets for kids. Last year Fisher-Price pushed coding to toddlers with the amazing Code-a-pillar. It took the metaphor out of "object-oriented programming" by giving kids literal "objects" to code with in the form of the body segments of the bug. The robot could be commanded to exececute a series of manuevers by assembling the body part objects, each of which would point the bug in a different direction, in any order.
This year the robot, Lightning McQueen from the Cars series from Pixar, is controlled by drawing a path on a touchscreen on the trunk of the car. The robot executes the manuever, following the path sketched on the touchpad. You can see it in action on my YouTube channel.
