
DJI RoboMaster S1 - dakrisht
https://www.dji.com/robomaster-s1
======
Sendotsh
For those that aren't aware, this is designed for the RoboMaster robotics
league in China, which is sponsored (owned?) by DJI in the first place.

Overview of the competition series itself:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYsCyMC-0w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYsCyMC-0w)

Video of the 2018 Finals:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNQfaf_Cr0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNQfaf_Cr0)

Bloomberg video about the RoboMaster S1:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs)

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hurrdurr2
Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting.
They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is
what they came up with.

~~~
throwaway66666
The fact that DJI releases an educational robot for kids that has a working
cannon feels super icky from my western perspective. In China do they think
it's a great idea? Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason?

Also, how long until someone recreates the famous square scene with a lego
character and 3 of these?

EDIT: This video from the promo page where it is hunting down a child -
[https://www1.djicdn.com/assets/uploads/v/1b34c0e069531a08639...](https://www1.djicdn.com/assets/uploads/v/1b34c0e069531a08639d0647602d073c.mp4)

This would have been great without the cannon, with the cannon it feels...
off.

~~~
Lazare
> The fact that DJI releases a [toy] for kids that has a working cannon feels
> super icky from my western perspective.

I don't think that's a _western_ perspective, I think that's _your_
perspective. The actual western perspective likes robots, toys, toy weapons,
robotic toys, and robotic toy weapons, and all the various combinations
thereof. Nerf and Transformers have been cultural staples for decades.

This isn't even the first commercial toy robot with a toy gun on it:
[https://www.amazon.com/Nerf-Creatures-TerraDrone-
Discontinue...](https://www.amazon.com/Nerf-Creatures-TerraDrone-Discontinued-
manufacturer/dp/B00K2QZQUQ)

Or the second: [https://www.amazon.com/TerraScout-Nerf-N-Strike-Official-
Rec...](https://www.amazon.com/TerraScout-Nerf-N-Strike-Official-
Rechargeable/dp/B01DREMRGK)

Or the third: [https://www.amazon.com/Unknown-782-USB-Missile-
Launcher/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Unknown-782-USB-Missile-
Launcher/dp/B000XYR2CM)

Or the hundredth: [https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Imports-Control-Military-
Airs...](https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Imports-Control-Military-
Airsoft/dp/B01M23XELQ)

I guess you could argue the programmable nature of this somehow sets it apart,
but I don't see how.

> Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason?

I don't think the culture gap is where you imagine.

~~~
throwaway66666
yes, there are many commercial toy robots with guns. And there are many gun
toys and violent videogames etc etc.

But they are not educational. Educational + has a cannon. There is some
cognitive dissonance right there. My opinion.

~~~
ezconnect
Toy guns itself is an educational toy. It teaches you on how to use it. As kid
growing up with guns the only way I can have my own and learn it is by having
a toy version.

~~~
gatherhunterer
Guns are not toys. The fact that you cannot draw the line demonstrates the
problem perfectly.

~~~
Lazare
Well yeah, guns are not toys. And thus logically, toys are not guns.

> toy, noun, an object for a child to play with, typically a model or
> miniature replica of something.

A model of something is not the thing itself, therefore, toys are not guns,
thus a toy gun is fine for children to have. Because it's a toy, and as you
say, toys are not guns. :)

(Sorry if this comes off snarky, but seriously, step back and consider your
argument: Lots of toys, as per the definition above, are models or real
things. Cars aren't toys; does that mean toy cars should be banned in case a 6
year old plows his 1:75 scale diecast model car into a crowd? Obviously not.
Other common toys include airplanes, kitchen appliances and tools. You seem to
have misunderstood _the entire point of toys_. If the toy is itself dangerous,
that's an issue. If the toy is a model of something which is dangerous, well,
that's why the kid has the toy and not the real thing. Ideally they may even
learn some caution with the safe toy version.)

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mikl
Damn, a younger version of me would have loved this thing. The remote-
controlled cars we had in the 90's were downright primitive in comparison.

~~~
cbg0
Those primitive RC cars weren't $499 though.

~~~
djaychela
I'm clearly old, but I'm sure I remember the Tamiya Frog was about £100 in the
mid 1980s, plus radio - IIRC it was about £130 for a complete kit. That
equates to about $500 in today's money, so it's not a crazy after all...

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xchaotic
My kids went through Sphero, Mindstorms and a couple of other robots where you
can program them in Scratch and similar. To me such a toy would have been a
godsend. They got bored pretty quickly.

Another issue is that gimbal adds to video quality but also to cost.

Finally with the hype, I was expecting a nice ready to fly FPV drone.

So I'm a bit meh about this toy.

~~~
Mauronic1
Why do you think they would not get bored? Also, what do you think about the
price?

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sneak
DJI is amazing. They sell their drone IMU+RF module separately to make your
own drones, and their new 4K Osmo Pocket comes with me everywhere I go. Few
companies are making such innovative hardware.

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ex3ndr
So they are showing how this robots shoot each other and then they show where
you can point to a child to follow (or shoot?)...

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yardie
I like it. Wish it came with an arm instead of a turret. We have a Parrot
Mambo in our home. The turret was used for a few days and then removed. It
added a lot of bulk and halved the flight time.

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rosege
This website has a major flaw. When I click the buy button it says not
available in your country. I was thinking about getting this for my nephew who
lives in the USA while I live in Australia. I know I'm obviously a small
percentage that is outside USA that could buy and get it delivered to a local
address but it still seems crazy not to even allow that.

I know I could vpn it but I don't think that should be necessary.

~~~
deskamess
To mimic your use case, I went through a trial run and it does let you enter a
non US billing address (Australia was a drop down).

~~~
rosege
Yes but are you in the US? When I try and buy it says not in your country. I
did just find that if I go store then change to US I think I can now order. I
was on my mobile before so this definitely wasn't clear then.

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acomjean
Seems A lot like Robocode, but with hardware and less destruction.

(robocode seems to still be going, though I haven't looked at it in a while..)

[http://robowiki.net/wiki/Robocode](http://robowiki.net/wiki/Robocode)

[https://robocode.sourceforge.io](https://robocode.sourceforge.io)

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Tepix
So, how about a DIY variant of this?

\- Start with a DonkeyCar with Jetson Nano

\- add mecanum wheels (why not three instead of four?)

\- add a weapon or laser pointer or whatever

On the other hand, do we really want to push gamification of autonomous weapon
systems?

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JustFinishedBSG
DJI taking the time to write a page for the S1 in my language only to at the
very end tell me "Not available in your region" is toying with my emotions and
heartbreaking

~~~
xiphias2
You can always do dropshipping...it's sucks, but us non-US people are always
second class citizens of the world.

~~~
mrguyorama
It's a chinese company isn't it? You'd think they'd have a non-US worldview

~~~
xiphias2
Generally they are quite global, but we see that they are China and US first.

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jeannekamikaze
Interesting how an educational robot project/competition always needs to
involve the careful exercising of ballistics against a target. Descartes
clearly got it all wrong and should have instead formulated his proposition as
"I fire ma lazerz, therefore I am". By that definition, the singularity is
clearly near.

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danboarder
Bloomberg Businessweek created an excellent video profile of how this kit fits
in robotics education and STEAM programs:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs)

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yeldarb
Looks like a cooler version of the AWS DeepRacer mixed with an old LEGO
MindStorm kit.

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jpdb
I know this is a yet-to-be released product and it says Python is supported,
but does anyone know if it is possible to install 3rd party libraries and
interact with the filesystem?

Interested in installing a webserver like flask on here.

~~~
Mauronic1
It will be interesting to see how open it is but DJIs first educational
offering (Tello) and other products don't go very far in that regard.

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darepublic
This looks pretty damn cool and I'd like to try it. But weird that the western
media hasn't picked up this story in light of all their coverage on China
stealing IP...

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PanMan
What does the "gun" shoot? It seems laser, but then how does the target in the
movie (which seems to be paper) fall over?

~~~
sjcao
it's some kind of small ball, need to absorb water for 2+ hours before use.

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willart4food
why this?

> To comply with local laws and regulations, the RoboMaster S1 will not be
> sold in Washington, D.C. or North Dakota.

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Mauronic1
My American girlfriend's immediate response: seems militaristic and violent.

My daughter was turned off from robotics at a young age. She joined firstego
league and there was a ton of domineering "boy energy" in her school. She
enjoyed creating and personalizing the robots in unique ways, the boys wanted
"to win".

This is what happens when you have a bunch of dudes designing educational
robot toys.

~~~
akerl_
I’m more concerned by the idea that wanting “to win” is “boy energy”. Why
should we persist the idea that wanting to win is a boy thing, and wanting to
create/personalize is (as implied by your comment) a girl thing?

~~~
cbg0
> Why should we persist the idea that wanting to win is a boy thing

Because it most often is, boys typically like to compete more than girls do.
I'm not going to quote studies on this, just basing this on my experience
growing up and now as an adult being around small kids.

~~~
akerl_
This speaks to society’s role in conditioning men to be aggressive and women
to be passive, which was exactly what I said I was concerned with.

Unless you’re making the case that absent cultural conditioning, women are
biologically less interested in “winning” than men?

~~~
lm28469
Ew, I can't for the life of me understand this "everything is a social
construct" mindset.

The average man is biologically different than the average female.
Testosterone alone can explain why men are generally more violent and sexually
aggressive than women. And there are many many many other factors in effect.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/)

Why do people get angry about facts, there is no value judgment in saying "The
average women is inclined to do X while the average man is more inclined to do
Y", it doesn't mean "every woman HAS to do X and every man HAS to do Y". Why
would every animals of different sex present different behaviours but somehow
humans are all 100% equal and every difference is due to "society" ? Is
biology a social construct now ?

~~~
akerl_
I’m not claiming that “everything” is a social construct.

I replied to the claim that wanting “to win” is a masculine trait, and
compared it to the feminine trait of personalization/creativity. It seems
pretty far fetched to claim that biology causes boys to be more interested in
winning Lego programming competitions.

~~~
lm28469
> It seems pretty far fetched to claim that biology causes boys to be more
> interested in winning Lego programming competitions.

Why ? The "Lego programming competitions" is a detail there, the important
part is "does winning at X triggers the same biological pathways as winning at
Y ?" and "are men more inclined to be competitive ?".

For example men are more inclined to do dangerous activities for fun, like
racing cars or rock climbing. Does it means that biology ""wants"" men to race
cars, no, just that racing cars trigger biological pathways somehow perceived
as more beneficial for men than female.

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arnaudsm
I predict someone will mount a real gun on this.

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nosuchthing
Wow so crowdsourcing the military industrial complex's artificial intelligence
KILLBOTS?

This almost looks like it's satire, but it's completely real and for sale,
just $499!

Reminds me of this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM)

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synaesthesisx
Wild speculation, but I could see Apple acquiring DJI.

~~~
Leherenn
No way the Chinese government would let a strategic asset be bought by an
American company, especially nowadays.

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yayr
imo giving way to kids impulses like fighting might be commercially the most
viable thing - educationally it is not. It is always much easier to be
destructive than constructive. However, we should try to teach our kids the
latter. Achieving win-win does not usually come from impulse but from empathy.

Although it is hard, I try to avoid fighting games and media for my kids as
much as I can and try to teach them competing in more creative ways...

~~~
bubblewrap
The kids would presumably spend a lot more time constructing than destructing.
I also doubt the robots get actually destroyed in the competition.

Do you also forbid water blasters in the hot summer?

As you say, those playful fights are a natural impulse. It is also not true
that you can solve every problem without violence.

I'm expecting people to chime up with "what about the girls?", though.
Presumably those battle bots might be considered off putting to girls, putting
them to a severe disadvantage because they miss out on their STEM education.
(An argument I would also consider bullshit, but those are the times).

~~~
yayr
as I said, it's hard, but I offer them alternatives: building things, ball
games, surfing,... I guess they are better of with that than water blasters.

~~~
bubblewrap
In what way are they better off, would you say?

Btw Rudolf Steiner (of Waldorf School fame) would also outlaw ball games, at
least soccer. After all, the ball could be mistaken for a head and it could
train kids to kick heads.

~~~
yayr
I guess

1) they learn to have fun without the need to feel superiour (ball games need
some supervision in that regard though)

2) they learn emotional intelligence, especially for activities that require
collaboration (surfing not so much though)

people tend to miss, that in the early years many inner brain functions and
predispositions, especially emotional regulation get tuned for the rest of the
life...

~~~
bubblewrap
I don't think winning in a game has to involve "feeling superior". Many games
of chance are also fun. In other cases, somebody might actually be superior
(the better player). Then what - nobody should be better than anybody else in
anything? Maybe the "loser" can try to become better, for example.

And it can also train emotional intelligence to win or lose gracefully in
games, and try again.

What will your kids do when they encounter somebody who "feels superior" later
in life? Like an actual superior, perhaps?

