Ozobot Evo Party and Review #Tryazon #OzoSquad

As a participant in the Tryazon Ozobot Party, I received an Ozobot party pack which included a complimentary Ozobot Evo for my family and a guest. All opinions expressed are my own.

Growing up, I never thought anything about being interested in science and math. In fact, I knew from a young age that I wanted to be an engineer, although honestly, I'm not sure I really knew what an engineer was. Coding was something that was still 'new' when I was growing up, at least non-punchcard coding, but I had several opportunities to experience it in fun ways through camps and classes. I can remember first learning on an Apple Desktop computer and on a TRS-80 in math class in junior high. I even had a chance to go to a three week long summer camp in high school where I learned to program to create drawings. That knowledge base has served me well in my career too.

As a mom, I look for ways to bring STEM concepts to my kids in a fun way, such that they don't always realize that they are actually learning. When I first learned about Ozobot, I was intrigued it looked like a fun interactive toy that would help my kids learn about the basics of coding. Then, in late summer, I was invited to participate in a Tryazon party to check out the new Ozobot Evo and share it with friends and family. I was very excited to get the chance to let my kids and their friends play with the Ozobot Evo.

I didn't mention it to the kids until the party pack arrived. My daughter was so excited, wanting to know when we could open them and play with the Ozobot.

I love the packaging that the Ozobot Evo came in. Once opened, there are cute little 'drawers' that hold the charger, the markers, and the skin. There is also a pocket that holds the play mat and the top allows you to store the Ozobot Evo easily.

We started with the Experience Pack (available free on their website for Ozobot Evo owners). It introduces the kids to Line Navigation, first with basic pre-drawn black lines and then engages the kids by having them draw black lines that the Ozobot can follow.

As they work through the Experience Pack, they are awarded with stars on the Ozobot app and learn about the color codes that can provide direction to the Ozobot Evo. These color sequences can tell the Ozobot to spin, to walk backwards, turn right and more. The experience pack includes a code reference sheet.

The set comes with markers, but we found that if you have good markers you can also use standard markers to make lines to navigate and color sequences to tell the Ozobot what action to take. This is very helpful when everyone wants to make their own set of lines for Ozobot and you only have one set of official markers.

The Ozobot Evo in action:

Everyone had fun playing and exploring with Ozobot. After tackling the Experience Pack, the kids explored using the app to control the action of the Ozobot Evo. Then, they moved onto OzoBlocky on the app which allows them to drag and drop coding and create loops of the activity. With five levels from novice to master, OzoBlocky allows your child to do progressively more challenging code concepts. Once the code is assembled, load it to the Ozobot Evo and they can see their code in action.

At this point, my kids have only touched the surface of the games and learning opportunities within the app. My daughter really wants to explore racing with two Ozobots and has found continuous lines (both loops and intersected loops) on YouTube that she is experimenting with and discovering new ways to play with the Ozobot Evo.

I think this is a great toy for kids to explore coding concepts through interactive play. One mom at the party talked about how this would be a great alternative for a child that is in to video games, as Ozobot Evo can provide learning and exposure to coding through interaction. Which is a great alternative to some of the video games that are out there.

You can learn more about Ozobot, the Evo and the Bit and explore the App and other available resources on their website. Ready to buy? Right now, for a limited time, you can save on the purchase of you own Ozobot Evo by heading to their website and using the coupon code OzobotParty1517 to save 15%.

As a participant in the Tryazon Ozobot Party, I received an Ozobot party pack which included a complimentary Ozobot Evo for my family and a guest. All opinions expressed are my own.

Constant Fear by Daniel Palmer #review

No compensation was received for this post. A complimentary ARC was provided for the purposes of review.

CONSTANT FEAR, Daniel Palmer's newest thriller, hits stores Tuesday! "It's the story of Jake, a father who's gone to extreme lengths to keep his diabetic son, Andy, safe from dangers that might never come. When narcoterrorists take over Andy's school, though, Jake may have the only real tools to fight them. How far will a father go to save his son? Read CONSTANT FEAR, and find out."

When Daniel Palmer reached out to announce that his newest book would soon be out, I was very excited for a chance to read it. You see, I'm a huge fan of Daniel Palmer and found his books because I was also a huge fan of his father, Michael Palmer. It all started on a college trip called Dayton to Daytona that I joined in after my senior year of college. It was a great adventure that several friends and I had gone together for - taking a huge conversion van for the drive down. During that trip, I had read through the books that I brought along and headed to the gift shop at the hotel in search of a book to read. The one that I selected was Natural Causes by Michael Palmer. It was such an engrossing read, that I had to read more. I started picking up his other books and then got to a point where I read them as they came out. When Daniel started writing, I started reading. His dad wrote terrific medical thrillers and Daniel writes terrific techno-thrillers. Both father and son have a great ability to develop their characters, mix in a bit of love, and write a book that is just too believable that it is scary.

Having already started the book and trying to fit in time to read in my busy schedule, I was glad to have a nice extended break between kid's activities on Saturday that gave me over a 6 hour window for whatever I wanted to do. And with the perfect weather this weekend for sitting out on the back deck while the kids played with friends and read, I had the right combination to have some quality me time and read. I was so engaged in the book that when we did run out for an early afternoon movie, I took the book with me. My husband mocked me for bringing it along for a five minute car ride when one of the kids said 'hey mom...' as soon as I opened the book to start reading. But, when a book is that good and you are getting to the climax of the story, the last thing you want to do is to wait to read it.

One thing that I thought was unique about this book was that the person that was 'involved' in the techno part of the techno-thriller was not what I considered the main character, and in his other books they have been. Of course, Andy and his group of friends are part of the main group of characters, but it is Jake, Andy's dad, that is the main character in this story.

The suspense begins within the first few paragraphs, and although there is a short break where the back story is developed, the intensity only grows from there. As a reader, the suspense in the first chapter heightened my want to read quicker...I wanted to understand why we were where we were and what exactly was going on. I love it when a book draws you right in and then takes pause to start to build the background. Daniel Palmer successfully shares enough about Jake and Andy's past and allows the reader to really get to know them and understand where they are coming from.

If you are a fan of suspense and thrillers, this is a definite must read.

From the back cover:

When Jake Dent’s dreams of baseball glory fell apart in a drunk-driving incident, his marriage did too. In those dark days, a popular survivalist blog helped to restore Jake’s sense of control. He’s become an avid Doomsday Prepper, raising his diabetic son, Andy, to be ready for any sudden catastrophe.

Andy, now a student at the prestigious Pepperell Academy where Jake works as a custodian, has a secret—he’s part of a computer club that redistributes money from the obscenely wealthy to the needy. Usually, their targets don’t even realize they’ve been hacked. But this time, they’ve stolen from the wrong people: a vicious drug cartel that is coming to get its money back…

Staging a chemical truck spill as a distraction, the cartel infiltrates the Academy, taking Andy and his friends hostage one by one. Jake, hidden inside the school’s abandoned tunnels, knows that soon the killing will start. With his training, and a stockpile of weapons and supplies, he’s the last, best hope these students—including his son—have of getting out alive. But survival is no longer an abstract concept. It’s a violent, brutal struggle that will test Jake to the limit, where there are no rules and no second chances…

Want to check it out? You can download the first chapter on Daniel Palmer's website and buy the book at your favorite book store or online.


No compensation was received for this post. A complimentary ARC was provided for the purposes of review. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family.

Desperate by Daniel Palmer

*complimentary review copy received for this post.

Desperate is the latest technical thriller from Daniel Palmer and I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy to read. In fact, I was finishing the last chapters earlier this week when the book was released.

The book did not disappoint. The story is told from the viewpoint of Gage Dekker and centers on the story of him and his wife Anna Miller. Gage lost his first wife and his son in a tragic car accident. He is still very much so dealing with that loss, years later when this story takes place. His second wife Anna met him at a grief group that he was attending and which she had joined to help her cope with the loss of her son. After a quick relationship, they were married and had decided that adoption was the way for them to start a new family together, after a miscarriage. They decided to go the route of a direct adoption and had built an online profile on a site that allows parents seeking to find a family for their child a way to review families that are looking to adopt.

As the story opens, Gage and Anna come upon a young woman, Lily, crying at the bus stop. Newly pregnant and homeless, they invite her to move into their apartment to give her a safe place to live while she carries a child, that they plan to adopt. When she gives them gifts for welcoming them into their home, Gage begins to question her motives. It seems that as time passes, more unsettling things begin to happen and as Gage begins to question whether there is something going on, a wedge is driven between him and Anna.

Desperate was a real page turner, that I simply didn't want to put down. Fortunately for me, I was on a four and a half hour flight, so I had time to read most of the book uninterrupted (other than by the beverage cart stops). Of course, when I arrived at my destination, I wanted to just focus on finishing the book but my schedule forced me to wait until later to finish.

Daniel Palmer does a nice job developing the characters. Gage and Anna are a couple that you can't help but care for and cheer on in their desire to become parents again. Of course, since the story is told from Gage's perspective, he is the one that you get to know best, but Daniel Palmer does a great job developing the other characters too - Anna, Brad, Lily and Roy.

Sometimes, when reading thrillers, I wonder to myself, which is more scary - the events happening in the story or the fact that someone came up with this idea for a story. This story was no different. With all of the twists and turns, it makes you wonder how could the characters have discerned happenstance from plot.

There were some really good twists and turns in the story and as each became apparent, I found myself asking "really?". The book started slower than some of the other books I have read by Daniel Palmer, but once it got moving, it was non-stop.

I would recommend Desperate to any lover of thrillers.

From DanielPalmerBooks.com:

Gage Dekker still blames himself for the car accident that claimed the lives of his first wife and young son. Then he meets Anna, who understands grief all too well. Within a year, Gage and Anna are married, his career is thriving, and both feel ready to become parents once more.

After a heartbreaking miscarriage, they begin the long adoption process, until fate brings Lily into their lives. Young, pregnant, and homeless, Lily agrees to give her baby to Gage and Anna in exchange for financial support. It’s the perfect arrangement for everyone. Seeing his wife’s happiness and optimism for their new life and child, Gage begins to feel a sense of hope he thought he’d lost forever.

But something isn’t right once Lily enters their lives. At work and at home, Gage is being sabotaged, first in subtle ways, then things take a more sinister turn. Every attempt he makes to uncover the truth only drives a wedge between him and Anna. Even as he’s propelled toward an unthinkable choice to save his marriage and his job, Gage discovers that the most chilling revelations are still to come…

No compensation was received for this post. A complimentary advanced reader's copy was provided for this review. All opinions expressed are my own or that of my family.

Navigating Technology with Children

Yesterday, I joined my son on his class field trip. Since the bus was leaving right after school started, I drove him to school. After dropping off my daughter at daycare, we were getting back in the car to head to his school. My son started to get in on the 'wrong' side of the car. I made a comment that in a few years, when she no longer uses a booster seat, he'll easily be able to sit on either side of the car. Then, I said but by then, you will almost be old enough to sit in the front seat, I think. It's either 12 or 14. His response was, "I think it's 12, the year before you can have Facebook."

As a parent, one of the challenges that I face is when to let kids have what technology (and where)?

When I was a kid, I can remember that my parents tried to keep things 'even' and our 'big' Christmas gifts aligned to this approach. I can remember my frustration with the fact (seems rather minor now, but it was a big deal to me at the time) that I got my stereo when I was a freshman and got my CD player as a junior, yet my brothers got both as freshman. What I failed to recognize is that although the CD player was 'newer' technology. It wasn't yet a standard part of packaged stereo systems when I got my first stereo, but by the time my brothers got them you couldn't buy a packaged stereo without a CD player. Not only that, my first CD player was a single disc player and they got changers.

With the way that technology is evolving today, I expect to have that type of experience amplified in my children's life.

For me, one challenge is that unlike you get a bicycle at age 5, because that is when I got mine and that is when you are physically ready to learn the mechanics of riding, there aren't clear guidelines or experiences in my life to support what is the right age for technology. The first family computer at my house was one that my dad had brought home from work. I seem to recall that it was around my junior or senior year that we got it. I went off to college with no computer and relied on my roommate's computer and the computer lab for writing papers and checking e-mail (of course, only my classmates had e-mail - so I didn't get many - as an aside, I had over 80 e-mails come in while off from work yesterday to join the field trip). I got my first cell phone when I was working as a co-op. The plan didn't come with minutes and I paid the monthly fee to provide the safety of having a phone for my 1 1/2 hour drive from my hometown to my apartment for work.

The field trip yesterday made me think even more about it. There was an hour long bus ride for the field trip and many kids brought along 'technology' to pass the time. I saw Gameboys, iPods, iPads, and iPhones in use by this group of third graders. They were playing games and singing songs, fully entertaining themselves with their technology.

The reality is that our kids are growing up surrounded by technology - not just at home, but at school too. I remember there being one computer in my sixth grade class, I remember learning to program the TRS80 in junior high math class (there was one lab), I learned to type on a electronic typewriter (somewhere between manual and word processor), and I remember blue ditto copies of papers and overhead projectors using clear sheets that the teacher wrote out ahead of time. Now, they have computers at every level. There are a few in the classroom and a computer lab and a mobile computer lab. The teachers have touchscreen smart boards that they project on.

I want to balance the simple of being children with the reality that they need exposure to technology to be caught up with classmates. I like that technology can give me peace of mind. I like that my son, with his iPod and access to his friend's wireless network is able to send me iMessages to 'check in' when he is at a friend's house, so I know that things are okay. I want to take advantage of the great learning applications that are out there, but balance that with keeping them safe from all of the bad stuff that is lurking out there.

So, when is the right time to allow children access to technology? When is the right time to allow them to have their own technology? When is the right time to allow them to 'take' their technology with them (to their room, to a friend's, to school, on the go)?

So far, we have made a few moves in the world of technology, but I expect many more questions will come up soon.

The kids share a laptop that sits in our family room. It is a place for them to play games, research a report for school, and send e-mails to Grandma and Grandpa.

The kids each have a digital camera that they got when they were about 4. It is interesting to see what they capture on their cameras and to see things from their level. The nice advantage here is that we don't have to print any of them - like we did when I was a kid. Their cameras also allow them to capture video. Watching their videos also shows a lot about them and their viewpoint.

We gave them their first CD player that they could use when they were about 5. It is a little 'boombox' style player that sits on the bookshelf. We gave them books with read-along CDs to go with it.

My son got his first iPod a few years ago and when it broke, was upgraded to an iPod Touch. Now, he has a docking station with speakers so that he can listen to his iPod now instead of CDs. I think that he was seven.

The first question at hand is when does my daughter get her first iPod. Does she get his old one and he get a new one or do we buy the new one for her?

When do we allow them to have a cell phone? Do we have them take our house phone (which is a cell phone hooked up to an xLink), when they need it or do we get them their own? This is a mix of responsibilities - not losing a costly cell phone, using the phone responsibly, etc.

Do we allow them to join Facebook at 13, as long as we are their Friends?

Do we stick with a family room approach for the laptop or do they eventually get their own laptops or are allowed to take the shared one up to their rooms?

What has worked for you? How do you navigate technology with your children?

This post shared at Works For Me Wednesday - although I guess this is more of a backwards Works for Me since I am seeking input.