Sphero's New RVR Robot Is More Hackable Than Ever

Sphero is introducing a new robot today on Kickstarter. Called RVR, which can either be pronounced just like it's spelled or like "rover," the robot is a development platform designed to be a bridge between educational robots like Sphero and more sophisticated and expensive platforms like Misty. It's mostly affordable, very expandable, and comes from a company with a lot of experience making robots. For a US $199 Kickstarter pledge, this looks like a very solid little robot, carefully thought-out and designed to be rugged and durable. It comes with an ambient light sensor, RGB color sensor, 9-axis IMU, IR sensors, magnetic encoders for the wheels, and a bunch of LEDs.