Use Tech to Get Your Kid Off the Couch

Have your kids been zoning out on TV and video games this summer? If they need some motivation to explore the outside world then look no further. Tech 2U is here today to go over the hottest tech to help keep them occupied and get your kid off the couch. The LeapBand from Leap Frog is the perfect device to get your younger kids jumping and moving around. The LeapBand is a small watch device that holds a virtual pet. Kids can move and hop around to level up there pets and complete challenges. On top of exercise, the game promotes healthy living by allowing you to choose healthy snacks for your virtual pets. The pet salon also reinforces good hygiene practice for your growing children. The LeapBand will continue to track there activity throughout the day, but will be locked during school hours and inaccessible until they are home, allowing them to be conscious of there physical activity, but not distracting them from there studies. The LeapBand from Leap Frog is a perfect device for any growing kid, promoting physical and mental wellness, while being competitive and engaging at the same time. The device can be found for $29.99 on there website found here. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="232"] Parrot Rolling Spider[/caption] For kids a bit older, an indoor-outdoor mini drone can be a great gift that has limitless possibilities. The Parrot - Rolling Spider is the perfect drone to get started in the hobby. Controlled through your smartphone and only costing between $70-100 depending on where you buy, the Parrot Rolling Spider is the perfect entry drone that is light on the wallet. The Rolling Spider hosts a ton of cool features and includes everything you need to get started along with a FreeFlight 3D app, smooth flight, easy controls, and an on-board camera. The drone also comes with a roll cage that will protect it from most obstacles and even gives you the ability to roll it on the ground! The main drawback of the spider is its battery life. However, the 8 minute battery life can be supplemented with additional batteries to keep the Rolling Spider in the air. If your kid is excited about flying around the neighborhood with a powerful mini-drone, than the Parrot - Rolling Spider is the perfect gift.   [caption id="" align="alignright" width="284"] Parrot Jumping Sumo[/caption] If flying isn't your thing, than the Parrot - Jumping Sumo is right up your alley with truly unique features. The Sumo is a 2 wheeled machine that is remotely controlled by an app on your cellphone or tablet. The Sumo also features a live streaming camera that shows exactly what the Sumo sees, streamed to your phone. With its unique design, any terrain is possible and the Sumo excels at getting into even the most treacherous of places. Possibly the coolest feature of the Jumping Sumo is of course, the jumping. The sumo can jump up to 31 inches in the air, and always stabilizes and lands on its feet. The battery life is also considerably better and one charge can last up to 20 minutes of continuous use. The Jumping Sumo is a bit more expensive and runs between $110-150 depending on where you buy. For the teens in your life that need an excuse to play outside, Pokemon Go is here to help. Pokemon Go has been making international news and has been one of the most successful games ever created. The game uses GPS to overlay Pokemon onto your actual environment. The game forces users to go outside and walk around and explore to catch the Pokemon and refill there items at Pokestops. If you are at home, you can do basically nothing, the app forces you to explore new places. Community buildings, public interest places, and nature preserves hold different types of Pokemon and rewards players for there exploring. The game is free to play and only kids who are aware enough of there surroundings should be allowed to play by themselves. For family fun time that is both entertaining and interesting, Geocaching is the perfect activity. Geocaching is modern day treasure hunting. People hide treasures around the town and leave a few clues to its location. There are more than 2 million active users, with caches that are easy to find, and others that are very intricately hidden. The idea is you go hunting for the cache, and can take anything out of it you want, as long as you leave something in return. This gives users the thrill of finding real treasure in there area! Visit the Geocaching website to download the offical app and get started on your adventures! Be sure to like Tech 2U on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter for more updates and articles like this one!   Video Transcription: Interviewer: Just trying to catch him. Ryan: Well, you kinda hit it. We are gonna talk about how to get your kids active and make them do something other than sit on the couch the rest of the summer. Interviewer: Ryan Eldridge from Tech 2 U with some great advice. Parents are already getting ready for school and the kids are coming off the summer mode where it's all been about video games TV. So how do we get them off the couch with the gadgets? Ryan: So we start with the younger kids. So if you got a kid that's 4-7 years old you wanna get them off the couch and make them do something fun this is called the LeapBand, and it's by LeapFrog is kind of cool. It's 16 bucks. You can get it on Amazon and what this is like a Fitbit for 4-year-olds. Interviewer: Perfect. Ryan: You stick it on their wrists and it will give them little exercises they can do throughout the day. It will say like pop like popcorn or walk in a straight like and different things like that. And there is a little character you can get on there and that little character will exercise with him as well. Looks like the battery is dying on that. But the character will exercise with them. They will grow with them... Interviewer: That's what it looks like. Ryan: Yeah. It will also give them little ways to...hygiene tips so you can get brush teeth with little character things like that and the healthier you are the most healthy the character... Interviewer: So adults can use that too? Ryan: Yeah, oh yeah, tell me about it. Interviewer: How much is this? Ryan: This is 16 bucks. You can get it on Amazon right now and the kids love it. And you can pair them two together so if you got siblings they can compete against each other, and be like, "Whoa, I did 600 steps today." Interviewer: Where was this? That was me and my brother and my sister [inaudible 00:01:19]... Ryan: If they are a little bit older, these are called MiniDrones. These are provided to us by Verizon Wireless. These are made by Parrot. So this first one is called The Rolling Spider which means that it's got two little wheels you can attach to it or you can fly it around the room... Interviewer: It can roll or fly? Ryan: Yeah and it got its own gyro, like, system in it so that it stays stable. It's really easy to fly. We can't fly it in the studio here but it's really cool... Interviewer: Sure? Ryan: ...when it takes off. And then this one is called The Rolling Sulu. And what this guy does is he can drive all around. There's a little camera on the front end, and he can take pictures and videos so he can kinda spy on people and see what happening. And he can also jump to, I think, it's up to like four or five feet, so it's kinda cool. Interviewer: He jumps five feet? Ryan: Yeah. And these run anywhere from $70 all the way to $150 depending on where you buy them. But they are very easy to pile it. Little kids can play with them, and it's just a little better than just a remote control car. Interviewer: Yeah. Ryan: And I would suggest on getting extra batteries because the batteries run down relatively fast. So let's talk about Pokémon Go. Interviewer: Let's do that because we haven't talked about it enough. Ryan: We're all huge fans, right? So that's another great one because you can't play Pokémon Go and stay on the couch. You have to get up and move around. It's the only way to play it so it's a great one to get the kids out especially if they are teenagers. They can go out in groups and play, but I would always suggest going in groups especially in places you are not aware of where you are going, you know? You have certain parts of town you don't want necessarily the kids walk into otherwise an adult would just kinda think, "Hey, thanks for the phone, kid." So you wanna make sure... Interviewer: Or worse. Ryan: Yeah. So make sure you have somebody with you. Interviewer: Yes. Ryan: And then last but not least is geocaching. I'll see if I can get that in one of the screens here. Geocaching is kind of the old school Pokémon Go where instead of just going around and looking for virtual monsters, you're going around looking for little geocaches all over the place. Interviewer: Excellent. Ryan Eldridge, a wealth of knowledge to get kids off the couch. We'll be right back after this.