Ian Bernstein, the founder at Orbotix, has been around on the amateur robotics scene for a very long time. He started a popular BEAM robotics website many years

Ian Bernstein, the founder at Orbotix, has been around on the amateur robotics scene for a very long time. He started a popular BEAM robotics website many years ago (http://beam-online.com/ http://beam-online.com/). I took a lot of inspiration from him during my highschool years. It's great to see folks like this making waves with actual hardware (the very neat AR Drone from Parrot also comes to mind). They were part of the Boulder Tech Stars summer program (http://www.gosphero.com/techstars-boulder-demo-day-is-here http://www.gosphero.com/techstars-boulder-demo-day-is-here). While some folks might scoff at the product, keep in mind all of the potential uses for smart phones interfacing with robotics and hardware in the real world. I think this is just the beginning. Toys are a gateway drug :)