
Ask HN: Good programmable robot kit for teens? - fenier
Hi there,<p>I know a few teenagers interested in robots, but are not super sold on the blockly drag and drop programming.<p>Anyone have something slightly more complex, while still being geared toward Teens?<p>Thank you!
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Splines
Check out FIRST. If you're lucky a local high school or organization will
already have a team that you could have them join.

[http://www.firstinspires.org/](http://www.firstinspires.org/)

It's a yearly competition and teams build a robot to compete. That robot is
usually pretty big (3x3 ft. at the base, usually?). There's a kit of parts
that includes a board, and the programming environment is mostly pre-
configured for you.

Next year's build season kicks off early January. The stuff these kids can
build in a month is pretty amazing.

~~~
presidentender
I volunteer with our local FTC group - FTC is grades 7-12, FRC is 9-12.

FIRST has really made our lives more difficult, paving the road to hell with
good intentions by using android phones instead of microcontrollers, which
required all new hardware of pretty poor quality and a Java software stack
that some teams are finding difficult. Our local group has been farmed out
around the state to provide support much more often than in years past.

That said, FIRST is probably still the best organization for these kids to
learn robotics, and I don't know whether FRC is going to suffer the same
hardware and software hurdles as FTC.

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playing_colours
Maybe Lego Mindstorms Ev3? [0] It's super cool and programmable with UI
programmer app and PC/MAC assistance, though still with programming blocks.
But I see people managed to use Python for programming it [1]

[0] [http://www.lego.com/en-
us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms...](http://www.lego.com/en-
us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms.lego.com)

[1] [http://bitsandbricks.no/2014/01/19/getting-started-with-
pyth...](http://bitsandbricks.no/2014/01/19/getting-started-with-python-on-
ev3/)

~~~
MichaelMoser123
Did your kids use it? what was your experience? I took a look and it looks
damn complicated - so many parts, how do kids manage to assemble this; Me as a
kid would have lost interest fast ...

~~~
newdaynewuser
As a kid I had many big Lego sets but not Mindstorm. I always enjoyed building
those. Recently, I bought Mindstorm set to play with. I don't see it much
different than regular Legos. Only difference is programming part but you can
always download pre-built program and just tweak a bit.

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redrobotics
Shameless plug, but...

I was frustrated by the lack of affordable, expandable walking robots, so I've
been working on one of my own

[http://www.redrobotics.co](http://www.redrobotics.co)

Not for sale yet, but I'm starting to run workshops locally and the plan is to
crowdfund in the early spring with a target price of about £70/$100. It'll
work standalone but can hold a Raspberry Pi or Arduino for expandability.

I think legged/armed robots can be a lot more engaging than buggy robots, and
open up some interesting avenues for creating motions and thinking about multi
degree-of-freedom limbs, but things like Robosapian are just toys, and the
$400 hobby robots can get boring quickly (e.g. adding a camera is difficult).

If you have access to a 3D printer there are some interesting open source
robot projects at the moment - for example Poppy: [https://www.poppy-
project.org/](https://www.poppy-project.org/) for which you can start by just
building a torso

------
vytautask
The recent Hanselman post talks about this -
[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/The2015ChristmasListOfBestSTEM...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/The2015ChristmasListOfBestSTEMToysForYourLittleNerdsAndNerdettes.aspx)
. IMHO, Raspberry Pi / Arduino + addons (I believe they are called "shields")
is the best thing that happened to robotics in this century...

------
ChuckMcM
I've been involved in robotics for a long time. The thing that I find
attractive is that they engage three different engineering disciplines,
electrical, mechanical, and software. However, that same diversity can often
dissuade a student who is interested but becomes intimidated by the steep
learning curve.

The other thing about robotics is that you really need a goal, otherwise
people lose interest. The HBRC started the table top challenge which was good
for a variety of reasons, 1) it was approachable, 2) it needed only a table
top to work, and 3) it had enough complexity (in stages) to keep people
challenged. DPRG created a number of challenges as well that were similarly
staged.

So first ascertain which of the three disciplines they are most likely to be
successful at. And start there. Parallax offers a number of good kits which
are easy to program and the Makershed has the Arduino based robots.

Second come up with a goal, an objective that you seek to accomplish. Working
toward that will give you the feeling of accomplishment you need to stay
interested and feel like you are going somewhere.

Third, decide on your budget and set your scale appropriately. For low budget
robotics you can build robots using converted servos for motors that roll
around on tables, but for higher budgets you might want to build "Magellen"
robots which can navigate around outdoors. If you really want to burn money
quickly I suggest starting a battlebots team :-).

------
VLM
ComputerCraft turtles on modded minecraft.

If you must spend money on hardware, buy them desktop upgrades, more memory or
the fastest processor that'll fit in the socket (may need to upgrade BIOS
first...) or a top of the line graphics card.

I think turtles are easy to program, they're in LUA and are a step above
blockly type stuff. I kinda like the LUA APIs, they're not ridiculous or
anything. They're simple enough that you'll get a chance to build useful
larger functions / subroutines.

At least its cheap. If they throw up their hands in frustration at programming
their own tunnel mining program, at least you'll find out soon and it'll be
cheap. Start with building a robot smart enough to build stairs all the way
down to bedrock. Extend to have it place actual stair steps and torches for
light, etc.

Note that there's a subtle difference between a future-EE-teen who thinks
programming robots is cool and a future-EE-teen who thinks robot hardware is
cool (like motor H-bridges and gray code position encoders and sensors and
generally melting solder). Obviously the latter is not going to find modded
minecraft amusing. There is also the "competition robot" set which usually
isn't programmable but amounts to homemade RC cars, you specifically don't
want that, just mentioning it as something to look out for and avoid in the
market.

------
bjpirt
Robot maker here so had to chime in with an obligatory plug :-)

I produce Mirobot which is designed to teach kids about everything from the
engineering aspects of how it's built to programming it using a number of
different methods. It's a drawing robot so you can also use it to learn about
geometry and maths.

It's all open source and easy to program because it connects via WiFi which
means it can all be controlled via WebSockets in your browser. There are a
bunch of apps ([http://apps.mirobot.io](http://apps.mirobot.io)) which include
some drag and drop type apps but also an app to program it with JS. But
because it's all just async JSON over WebSockets (or raw sockets) you can
program it in any program you like really.

It's Arduino compatible which also means you can dig in at that level too.

Check it out if you're interested: [http://mirobot.io](http://mirobot.io) (15%
off with code: XMAS15)

------
jcagalawan
If you have the cash, we use Turtlebots in our labs. They use ROS which can be
programmed in C++, Python or LISP. There's a cheaper similar version that also
uses ROS called DeepBot, but I haven't had any experience with it. It looks
good from the website though and that price is hard to beat.

ROS is great as the code you write for one robot can be used on another one
fairly easily. It's also gaining pretty large traction in industry with
companies. I find that Raspberry Pi/Arduino route more geared towards
hardware. I tried that route myself and lost interest fairly quickly.

[0][http://www.turtlebot.com/](http://www.turtlebot.com/)

[1][http://www.ros.org/](http://www.ros.org/)

[2][https://www.autonomous.ai/deepbot-research-
robot](https://www.autonomous.ai/deepbot-research-robot)

------
joeevans1000
Makeblock is an awesome option. They are Arduino powered (and you can stack a
Raspberry Pi on top of that if you want). Most importantly, it's all Creative
Commons open source licensed, hardware and all. No buying into someone's
patented system. Most of the other kits out there seem like a disassembled toy
you're to screw together. The Makeblock kits are actually extensible and you
can make anything... they even have a plans for a 3D printer from the same
parts. The beams are designed to connect to Technic parts, as well. If you go
to your Radio Shack (yes, many Radio Shacks are still open and continuing on)
you can find these kits deeply discounted (like 25% of their original price).
[http://www.makeblock.cc/](http://www.makeblock.cc/)

------
bliti
I'm currently developing a FOSS line of robots aimed at tweens, teens, and
everything in between. They are not ready yet (work gets in the way!). I know
the marketplace well. Your best bet is to go with a Parallax Boe-Bot with the
Arduino instead of the Basic Stamp. The kits are high quality and cost around
$150 per kit. They are durable and are extensively documented. One kit per 3
teens is the norm. Anything else will have a bunch of plastic proprietary
parts that break and not be as well documented. With teens you want a solid
road plan that will keep them interested without overwhelming them.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me (profile). :)

------
j_s
Less than 48 hours left on the $15 Humble Bundle 'Learn RPi/Arduino' ebook
collection:

[https://www.humblebundle.com/books](https://www.humblebundle.com/books)

~~~
fenier
Bought that, thanks!

------
rogeryu
[https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-
learning](https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning)

Register, and use this link to add ebooks to your personal library. I've added
several books about Arduino and e.g. Python. You have to login each day, and
the book can only be claimed that one day. You don't know what book will be
free tomorrow, and yesterday's book is gone.

------
ocdtrekkie
I think the DFRobotshop Rover is a pretty nice starting kit:
[http://www.robotshop.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=dfrobots...](http://www.robotshop.com/en/catalogsearch/result/?q=dfrobotshop+rover&order=stats_sales_order_count&dir=desc)

It's really simple and straightforward construction, but it's also really
expandable, and really standardized. The main system board is basically an
Arduino with a bunch of additional parts like the motor controllers pre-
included. You can drop in XBees for wireless control or what-have you, add
Arduino shields, etc. The drive system is a very cheap, standard Tamiya kit as
well, so it's very easy to repair/replace damaged parts.

And it's an Arduino, which means you have a programming platform that's pretty
simple and exploding in popularity right now.

------
reportingsjr
Bricktronics is pretty awesome:
[https://www.wayneandlayne.com/bricktronics/](https://www.wayneandlayne.com/bricktronics/)

It lets you add on much more advanced tools to lego robotics by way of
arduinos.

Edit: I also want to add that bricktronics is open source!

------
skanga
We recently purchased ten Zumo robot kits from Pololu for our high school
kids. They all learned a lot and solved a maze using Arduino programming.

Check out
[https://www.pololu.com/product/2510](https://www.pololu.com/product/2510)

------
geppy
Mindstorms EV3. Hands-down, no question about it.

------
entropyintheuk
Vex!

Vex is definitely the highest quality stuff, you can program in C, and they
have tons of competitions using this gear to get involved in.

[http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexedr](http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexedr)

------
robotresearcher
The iRobot Create is a cheap, robust knock-about platform that has ROS drivers
available. It's based on the Roomba, so it's unusually well made for a hobby
robot.

[http://store.irobot.com/education-research-robots/irobot-
cre...](http://store.irobot.com/education-research-robots/irobot-create-
programmable-
robot/family.jsp?categoryId=2591511&gclid=Cj0KEQiA7rmzBRDezri2r6bz1qYBEiQAg-
YEtjXdgVqdfVOPzMlD1Z-Ef3B6geQFVNuhgB48FuZNB64aAszu8P8HAQ)

------
johansch
[http://www.trossenrobotics.com/robot-
kits.aspx](http://www.trossenrobotics.com/robot-kits.aspx)

------
Axsuul
Has anyone tried Littlebits?

[http://littlebits.cc/](http://littlebits.cc/)

------
panglott
A recent issue of MagPi has an issue about building RPi robots...
[https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/38/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/38/)

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nycthbris
IRobot has a new hackable robot geared towards STEM education. It's basically
a stripped down (read: vacuum-less) roomba you can hack on.

www.irobot.com/create

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vitno
when I was home-schooled, my dad bought me this
[https://www.parallax.com/product/boe-bot-
robot](https://www.parallax.com/product/boe-bot-robot)

It really sparked my interest in CS. I'm not saying it's the best thing out
there, but there certainly is no bullshit GUI...

------
asfandyaar
Try building from scratch! Super fun.

