Raise your hand if you’re a Star Wars fan, married to a Star Wars fan or raising a Star Wars fan. If your hand is up, you probably know that Force Friday is the day when all the new Star Wars toys, gadgets, and gizmos are released for the holiday season.
Last year, Sphero took the world by storm with their BB-8 droid. This little robot toy rolled it’s way into the hearts of kids, leading tech writers and regular old Star Wars-loving moms like me. This year, it’s even better. I had the chance to attend a special sneak peek of Sphero’s lineup for Force Friday and it does not disappoint.
Introducing ForceBand and Battle Worn BB-8.
Now you can use the Force to push, pull and control BB-8 using hand gestures thanks to Force Band. But that’s just the beginning. With Forceband, you can switch to Force training mode to follow commands from BB-8 to master Jedi Knight abilities. In combat training mode you can use your imagination to wield a Lightsaber or battle with a blaster. You can also uncover and collect digital Holocrons and control other Sphero robots with hand commands – including last year’s BB-8 model.
Special Edition Battle Worn BB-8
Pair your Force Band with Special Edition Battle-Worn BB-8, straight from the sands of Jakku. This Astromech Droid reflects the wear and tear of trekking across the galaxy on Resistance missions. You can watch your Droid explore on his own, guide BB-8 yourself, or create and view holographic recordings. So cool.
About Sphero
For those who don’t know Sphero, they have been defining and redefining connected play since 2010. In 2013, the SPRK education curriculum launched. Sphero began appearing in classrooms across the world, connecting 2000 participation schools, 12,000 teachers and 300,000 kids to coding.
They were then invited to the Disney Accelerator Program where App-enabled BB-8™ was born. As I mentioned before, it launched on Force Friday last year, and sold out on the first day. It achieved toy-of-the-year status and sold over one million Sphero robots in one year alone.
May the Force be With You
Those new holographic recordings along with the ability to use The Force to control BB-8 with hand gestures that have me seriously considering this one for my little man this Christmas. He loves recording himself and has been carefully enjoying the BB-8 I got for my birthday ‘mommy’s-toy-only-to-be-played-with-under-mommy-supervision’ for a year.
The Force is strong in him, and I think he’s ready.