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.
It's perhaps notable that Anki went out of business.
Given the popularity of games like Fortnite, the shooting dynamic seems somewhat inevitable. They may as well shoot at other toy robots and learn to program in the process.
From my experience companies try to design way too friendly and childish robots for kids. Kids at age 8-12 don’t like anki looking robots, they are not cool at all, maybe that’s the reason anki went out of business
I can imagine, that some primitive gripper is many times more expensive than this offensive component. With a gripper robot must be also bigger and wider as well as more expensive.
As I can see in my home country (ex Soviet Union), parents have no problems when little kids play with guns, tanks or planes. Germans, for example, avoid this. I have mixed feelings, I love peace, but the guns also exist in this world.
I'm from the former Eastern Bloc. Not playing with a toy gun as a child is seen as weird. It's something that never happens, everyone has used a toy gun many many times and never ever thought it's wrong.
Same deal here in at least some (most?) parts of the US (the vocal minority of overzealously-violence-averse helicopter parents notwithstanding). Cap guns, squirt guns, Nerf guns, you name it, we had it (and to my knowledge still have it). Such toys are increasingly-frequently disallowed in schools, but they're still prevalent in homes and toy stores nationwide.
When I was a pre-school child, most kids' parents didn't have money to buy toy guns often, but we made toy guns ourselves from sticks, and these worked quite well :)
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?
> 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.
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.
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.)
Educational about what? What about Lego, is it educational? Because you learn to stick bricks together. So I guess it teaches you to become a brick mason, I suppose?
We used to build guns out of Lego which eventually over the years led to our invention of custom Lego crossbows using rubber bands to sling projectiles. Our competition quickly devolved from who could shoot the farthest to who could hit moving targets (each other, cats, etc). After being hit a few times from each other's weapons, we quickly learned it's not fun to be on the receiving end, even if it was just a few grams of plastic.
IMHO this comment qualifies as one of those "bizarre anti-Chinese sentiment" ones.
The #2 consumer drone maker in the world after DJI, Parrot from France, also sells an educational drone for kids with a cannon (it's an add-on but gets sold together in a popular set), and has done so for years: The Parrot Mambo.
There's countless other toys for children that include weaponry and/or glamorize it for that matter, like just about any toy for boys sold in the US throughout the 80s, or so it feels like. I'm also quite sure LEGO has sold sets with motors and plans to build catapult contraptions. Nothing about this is "super icky from a Western perspective".
I am deeply concerned about many things going on within China (e.g. Xinjiang), but this willful othering and breakdown of empathy has to stop. The bottom line here is that some people think it's fun and/or will sell well to have a toy that shoots things. You can absolutely criticize that, but it's a culturally universal phenomenon and doesn't need to divide us along borders.
I was wondering if the culture there makes it more acceptable. I understand it is a poor question to ask, as it immediately sets the tone that China is doing something wrong. Perhaps I should have worded it better.
Bare with me for a second though. I grew up watching western spaghetti films, playing with bb guns and thinking of cowboys as heroes. I was born and raised in Europe, not in the US (just to see how much things changed in a few decades).
And I would not want my kids to grow up like that. Back then, that was normal. Today, luckily is not.
In the past, having robots that fight each other was cool, because it was in the realm of fantasy. Now that drones and unmanned vehicles are a reality, and the next step is to make them AI and metadata fully powered. Having robots fight each other begins to feel poor in taste, because the jump from toy to war machine becomes blurry.
I was just wondering what the general sentiment and how the culture in China is in regards to the above. Zero anti-sentiment, except honest questions.
>Bare with me for a second though. I grew up watching western spaghetti films, playing with bb guns and thinking of cowboys as heroes. I was born and raised in Europe, not in the US (just to see how much things changed in a few decades). And I would not want my kids to grow up like that. Back then, that was normal. Today, luckily is not.
As I see it, the world is a violent place, always has been and always will be, by not teaching your kids about it all you're doing is making them irrationally afraid of it. Then they want to be extra safe from it so they support politicians who says they'll keep them safe. Of course, safety involves constant control and oversight by the government but to those raised without violence it is a good tradeoff.
You wrote a rather leading "do they think it's a great idea?" (not a neutral way to ask this) and you said this would then constitute a large culture gap. If it's not sentiment, it's at the very least irrelevant - if the implied assumption holds that Western culture broadly considers this not a great idea (and I have my doubts on that one), then clearly it's not a requirement for the thing existing as the West does make and sell equivalent toys.
It's not normal? I'm only acquainted with a handful of children, but they all have toy guns and things. All I needed to read was your description "educational + cannon" on a drone to know I'll be getting this or something like it for my nephew this year.
Also from a Western perspective: this looks like a toy, they even include the orange tip. In context, and contrary to that western battle bots TV show, it seems to pretty much focus on education and competition. A goal which they seem to achieve or it wouldn't be viable to put commercial resources into it.
I don't get this finger pointing, can we please solve real gun violence in our midsts before going for educational resources?
Just preparing them to go to the MIT. Toying with guns is very much in line with western culture, not even mentioning video games. The ability to program the toy just makes it more attractive to nerds.
You mean the western perspective that have us bb guns, lawn dartsm, nerf guns, slingshots, and a plethora of other destructive devices?
As a western kids I woukd have loved a robot with working Canon. As a western adult, even more so.
Very well then. The robot is tracking a child with weapons drawn! Better? That was meant as a joke, it looks poor in taste because it is running after a child with the cannister of the cannon pointed towards the child. It even has "cannon cam" vision!! Without the cannon it's a great display of modern technology. With it, it looks kinda funny.
