Makeblock mBot Mega: Smart Remote Control Robot Car for Kids to Learn through Play

Very nice, A++, thank you very much.

Makeblock mBot Mega: Smart Remote Control Robot Car for Kids to Learn through Play

I ordered 2 bots so my son and I could build them together. Mine was great put it together no problem but I had a different wrench than my son. My son had more issues than I did and because the screw that keeps the wheels on stripped his does not work the way it should. He is giving up on it and building robots.

I've built a couple of robots over the years and was looking for a simple kit where I could build it, add sensors if wanted, and let it do its thing. The build is fairly straight forward but not very detailed. Because of the lack of detail, it's very easy to make a mistake at the beginning which follows through out the build. There is virtually no troubleshooting help whatsoever. For example, what colors and lights should I see? Which direction should the wheels turn ine ach mode? If it doesn't follow a line, why not? I started to look at the Community pages, but the sign in is in Japanese so I didn't even bother. This is probably an OK product, but the level of expectations about the user is way off base. If you're marketing this to kids on Instagram and Facebook. the backup documentation should be age appropriate.

This is going to be a gift to my grandson. He has not yet opened it. I would hope it would be a way for you not to send out he’s reading questions rating questions so soon.

Granddad actually purchased mBots Neo, Ranger, and Mega for three grandchildren. Video gives some idea of their enjoyment as well as ability to use robots almost "out of the box". Overall very pleased -- G'dad and G'kids! Extremely capable robots with a myriad of options in sensors and programming. Tech support from MakeBlock is excellent and G'dad used it often. MakeBlock Forum is also immensely helpful. The level of complexity to provide the extreme capability is overwhelming at times. The fact that each robot has a "different brain" was disappointing and creates multiple learning curves for G'dad. Fortunately, each G'kid only has one brain to worry about. Nonuniformity in USB connectors and power supply is another complexity that was disappointing. Furthermore, using a Fire tablet (which seems to be so much safer for younger children than a PC) presents some issues -- USB connections are not straightforward, mBlock on tablet doesn't show full screen, etc. But Bluetooth connection to use tablet as remote control seems to function well.

Durability and reliability could be better. Mega mBot looks very rugged but the positioning of the sensors makes them a bit fragile and the nylon hex spacers are delicate. One trip off the counter resulted in a destroyed "crash sensor" and two broken standoffs. Replacements are easily available online but not necessarily readily available from MakeBlock. Maybe brass standoffs would be a better choice. The battery packs do not hold batteries very securely. Both the Ranger and Mega will allow batteries to pop out of position with relatively small bumps to the robot if the bot is tilted significantly. The third section of the video demonstrates that repairs can be made; alternate crash sensor, new standoffs, and tape over batteries.

Bottom line, G'dad is extremely pleased and has had lots of fun with the mBots. The G'kids have picked up aspects of the mBots to allow them to have some enjoyment and will probably continue to find new ways to enjoy them if G'dad can be available to suggest a next step -- residences are across the state line. On a 10-point scale, these bots come in at a solid 9!

My apologies for the "watermark" on the video. I thought I had a media editor, but had to download a "free" one (with watermark) to develop the file.

Updated: the seller reached out and remedied the problem the way they could. From the "meh" customer experience they made it fantastic!---This was a gift for a friend with a PhD in electrical engineering. We were able to build the device quite easily by just following the instructions. Not that the Ikea-style instructions were perfect, but we made progress by using the most important tool in an engineer's arsenal: common sense.The iPhone and Android controller apps (and we've tried both) were fine. There was a bug in the iOS app, that prevented us from switching between the speed modes. Android app worked just fine.However, the main reason I got this bot is for it's supposed versatility in software. Oh, how much we were looking forward to get our code on it during the Xmas day. But alas, neither of us (a PhD in EE and me, with a masters in Computer Science) were able to get either Mac or Linux software kit working. Not only it would not connect to the device, but our attempts at building the simplest program would fail with compilation errors.The software distribution for this thing is huge: more than a 1GB in size. That is due to the fact, that it's fully self sufficient: there are no dependencies, all the libraries, even a C++ compiler and a Python interpreter are included. That notwithstanding, it all flat out doesn't work.Incredibly disappointing. I wish I could return the mBot Mega, but unfortunately it was a gift.

mBot Mega Advanced Mechanical Programmable Coding Robotic Kit

No review yet…..grandson is in Texas, we are not. After it’s put together (he’s enjoying doing that!) I’ll find out if he likes it. So far, so good.

Very intelligent gift to the kids.