Sphero Team
Mini table made for Sphero play.

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Sphero? Robots, right? Probably a safe assumption. That said, there’s a lot more to Sphero than just the bots. Sphero as a whole is also made up of designers, engineers, developers, product managers, QA and more.

But more so than all of that, Sphero is all of YOU — our makers, builders, educators, parents, students, and fans. Without you, we wouldn’t be here doing what we love day in and day out. So, for the sake of creation and for all of our tinkerers out there, we want to inspire you to make cool stuff and learn new things.

Actually, Scratch that.

We want YOU to inspire you.

This is Ben Coe’s custom-made Sphero Mini table. Ben is one incredible dude, hailing from the nicest place in North America — Canada. Neat, ey? He got on our radar when he posted this custom Sphero Mini play table he built just for his kids. Given the wow factor, we caught up with Ben to hear his awesome story and how this idea came about.

 

Turns out Ben learned from the best — his dad and granddad. In their makerspace (AKA their garage/workshop), they explored their own creative ideas by building toys for their kids and grandkids. Surprisingly, this table was one of his very first projects. 😮 So how did Ben get to discover Sphero and get to this point?

Little boy playing with activity table with Sphero Mini.

While Ben was getting sucked down the black hole that is YouTube, Ben spotted Sphero Mini and a light bulb went off (and yes, if he was in a real black hole, the light from the light bulb would have disappeared, but please, pay attention here.) Ben’s son is super into sports (especially soccer), so it just felt like a natural fit to MAKE something amazing. He bought several Sphero Minis and the journey began!

 

The master plan was to give the kids the table and Minis for Christmas. Drawing inspiration from the countless teacher-led activities in our Sphero Edu community, Ben and his wife Renae worked tirelessly to build the table itself and each play top. To sweeten the surprise, they had their kiddos paint the mini golf pieces, but never told them what it was all for.

On Christmas Day, the surprise was revealed. And they had a BLAST.

Two children playing with Sphero Minis on activity table.

And here’s the kicker — BEN ISN’T DONE! He’s already got plans for Table 2.0 — adding lights, 3D printed parts, and using pegboard to make the parts easier to change. That’s what we’re all about — testing, gathering insights and making things better.

We’ve all got a maker in us, and we want to feature what YOU’VE created with Sphero robots. Send us an email at blog@sphero.com and we may feature your project. Now get creating!