What do you think of the EDUbot?

[team222badbrad]

Now that most teams have their EdUrobots what do you think of them?

[AlbertW]

Our team ordered two kits, partially because we were really impatient and didn't want to wait for the second one, and cause we wanted to hold an in-team competition with the two kits.

It's nice that everything you need to build is included, but there are a few things that irked me:

The motor mountings were flimsy - sometimes if you screwed it in, the plastic would come off and you'd be screwed (or un-screwed, as the case may be... )

Secondly, there weren't any servos, or things you could make non-drivetrain-things with. Our programming teams literally got nothing from the kits.


Anyway, overall the kit was great!

[David Kelso]

Some good advice on the EDU motors is to put the mounting together one time and leave it. Those coarse screws will strip the plastic if you repeatedly screw and unscrew.

For new teams, you can do lots of programming for the drive train. Other teams can use two motors to drive and two for something else that you could control by programming.

Have fun with this kit.

[Ian Mackenzie]

I think the kits could have included a little more chain...otherwise, they're great. I think the the kits will be very valuable to rookie teams and rookie members, especially in learning the control system but also through the experience of the whole brainstorming-designing-building-testing process. We will be running an EDU competition at the Canadian Kickoff in Toronto, and a lot of teams are already getting quite excited about it.

[Harrison]

Just FYI for anyone comeing to the Canadian Regional: Ian is the man!

Back to the topic...

The Edukit is alright. Honestly, my team probably wouldn't be using it at all in terms of teaching the Jr's on the team aspects of the robotics (we have better things at school to use). But, as far as a lead-in goes for the Jr's this thing works pretty well.

It would be nice if it had some more "real" components to it, but, this was all donated to FIRST, so we can't really complain (except that we really didn't get nearly enough chain).

[Ken Delaney]

I think for an initial release of a product it is pretty good. I don't think our team will protoype with it becuase of its simplicity. The best part of the kit are the learning modules that were developed to use the kit as a teaching tool. I am planning on using the learning modules with our newbies this week. I hope it lives up to my expectations.

[Kane_da_slayer]

Oh Dude, The EDU competition At the 2003 Canadian Kickoff is going to be sweet, Looking forward to the match, and too see all of the tiny bots, good luck to all teams

[ECarlson]

One of our new engineers worked with some students to set up a mini-bot to do some pretty cool autonomous tasks.

Maybe you saw the simple line follower we put together over the summer. We'll they went way beyond that, with some much nicer code, and better sensors than we used.

Here's a link to the one we did over the summer. There are also some photos in the album.
http://www.invisiblerobot.com/robotics/line-follow/

I don't have anything about the new mini-bot up yet, but there will at least be some photos in the album in a few days.

[jonathan lall]

Originally posted by Harrison
Just FYI for anyone comeing to the Canadian Regional: Ian is the man!

Back to the topic...

The Edukit is alright. Honestly, my team probably wouldn't be using it at all in terms of teaching the Jr's on the team aspects of the robotics (we have better things at school to use). But, as far as a lead-in goes for the Jr's this thing works pretty well.

It would be nice if it had some more "real" components to it, but, this was all donated to FIRST, so we can't really complain (except that we really didn't get nearly enough chain).

Indeed he is; for those of you that don't know, he and Mr. Breadner designed the game for the regional this year. And we look forward to competing against you guys. And winning.

Originally posted by Kane_da_slayer
Oh Dude, The EDU competition At the 2003 Canadian Kickoff is going to be sweet, Looking forward to the match, and too see all of the tiny bots, good luck to all teams

Now that we all agree, how about some discussion of your EduBots for the Canadian Regional? You don't have to give away secrets, but I'd like to know what I'm up against... there's only so much you can do with a kit like that. And uhhhh... good job using 'dude' and 'sweet' in the same sentence

[utishpenguin]

somewhat another purpose

sometimes combining two things can be frustrating.

but in general the edu robtoics kit is very good to get new members started on robotics. but then the cost is somewhat high and when you want freshman to work in many little groups money then becomes evil [it is evil]. but then our team just did a edu robotics kit workshop/lecture instead.

from the quote aonic said before, i agree and i think the idea of orderign TWO edu robotics kits is very smart. It really allows the students to get a preview of robotics.

[Joe Matt]

GOOD
-Test Programing
-Test Ideas for bot design

BAD
-Gears are crap
-Lots of frame bending
-wheels loose traction easily

[utishpenguin]

i wont use the edu robtoics kit for prototyping since its flimsy than the real bot in many ways. but i agree the edu robtoics kit keeps the programmers busy before the robot has taken shape.