Sphero Mini Activity Kit

VP PRODUCT, SPHERO

As VP Product at Sphero, I was most proud of establishing the company’s “why” to help refocus us on products grounded in a common mission. This came at a time when Sphero had explored licensed products like R2D2 and Lightning McQueen that, while amazing technical achievements, were straying from what made Sphero special.

“Inspiring the Creators of Tomorrow” became our rallying cry and I worked to broaden our definition of “product” to include not just hardware, but also the software that interfaced with it, the content that gave you things to do, and the community that supported and inspired each other.

At the time, our two best selling products were Sphero BOLT, our $150 education-focused robotic ball, and Sphero Mini, our $50, multi-colored, miniature version of Sphero BOLT.

The Sphero Mini Activity Kit was the best of both worlds; a small form factor with a focus on creative problem solving for kids. With a proprietary construction set and activity cards that could be scanned directly into our PLAY and EDU apps, kids could work through both driving and coding challenges at incremental levels of complexity. We finally had a price-conscious product that appealed to both parents and schools that valued STEAM education. Most importantly, we inspired kids to create solutions to real world challenges through hands-on prototyping and block programming.