ELEGOO Tumbller Self-Balancing Robot Car Kit Compatible with Arduino IDE STEM Kits Toys for Kids Teens Adults (Blue)

I’ve been wanting to make one of these self balancing robots for a while and when I saw this kit I decided to get the kit instead of buying the individual components and trying to design and build something from scratch. After my experience with this I might still do that as this didn’t quite give me the challenge I was looking for!Pros.1. The packaging is brilliant, very neat and logical with good sturdy ziplock bags fir the screws and other components, well labelled and organised.2. Very easy to put together, I’ve also listed this as a con because depending on your skill level you might just find this too easy! It took me an hour and a half while watching the news!3. All of the components are well made and highly accurately drilled, everything lined up perfectly. The bottom base where the motors attach is anodised aluminium and the other flat decks are good quality clear Perspex, with protective paper on both sides.4. Good clear instruction manual backed up by an excellent video on YouTube.5. Well designed. It’s actually pretty hard to put this together incorrectly, even the boards are reversible so there is virtually no chance of getting things back to front.6. The finished article looks fantastic, loads of leds which change configuration depending on the mode it is in.7. Several modes such as follow, avoid etc.8. The App (I use IOS) is well written, paired with the robot first time and works very well. The joystick control can be a bit tricky to use but I’ll put it down to an inexperienced operator.Cons1. If you are skilled with electronics and looking for a project to keep you busy this is unlikely to keep you occupied for very long. This is being really picky as Elegoo are aiming this at all levels.2. There is a remote control button that “should” make the robot stand if it’s lying on its plastic support, this just does not work for me. It’s something I will play around with as it could easily be to do with the surface it’s on or just simply weighting, I.e. if some weights are added to strategic places it might just work.3. The proximity sensor works but is not fantastic and makes the follow mode a bit hit and miss.4. The biggest negative for me is the battery compartment which lies between the top two Perspex “decks”. In order to get the batteries out to charge them you have to undo and remove 3 screws and loosen the fourth in order to swing the entire perspex deck aside to access the battery compartment. The screws are very small and fiddly and could be easily lost (there were a couple of spares in my kit). A simple way around this would have been to provide knurled thumbscrews for this top deck, perhaps incorporating a captive design so when they are undone the remain attached to the perspex.In summary this kit is made from quality components, well designed and well packaged, I’ve had one or two other items from Elegoo so I was expecting good quality and I wasn’t disappointed. So despite the cons I’ve listed this is excellent value for money and a really cool project that will be fun to get out at a party or when the family comes to visit - if that ever happens ever again!

Bought this Tumbller kit, as like others, saw it as an education to build my own. Value of included parts roughly what the kit was so wasn’t taking to much of a risk. Took 90 minutes to build following the very good instructions, worthwhile putting the battery on to charge while building, loaded the phone application, switched on and all worked perfectly.At this point you have a balancing remote controlled toy. There are other things it can do but nothing particularly unique compared to other robot car kits other than balancing. The code for running the kit is optimal and changing it even by a small bit can stop it working so only small changes realistic. Using a more modern cpu would have improved it loads, but it works out of the box so there’s always a good point to go back to. I’ll be stripping out the code I’m not interested in and adding ‘dance’ routines for entertainment to give it something to do, and possibly adding a feature like a rider.

This is great value, the sum of the part costs a lot more and its very well built with a solid aluminium base, good motors and nice main board. It comes pre-installed with its base software which makes a easy build but removes some of the learning opportunity. I'm a seasoned robot builder with multiple fairly advanced platforms and this was to introduce my 8 year old to robotics. It its begging to be expanded on with a full load IO pins presented on the main board and the top levels of the body ready made for expanding. It has a App which works perfect and a couple of basic follow or avoid modes. Source code is available from wed site. I like it so much I'm going to right up a scratch module for it to really make it beginner friendly. I'll update this with a link to code when I have it at a point it is rock solid and suitable for kids without frustration.

I was pleasantly surprised by this kit. I'm a 72 year old hobbyist and I have built a number of kits that were made in China. They are usually very flimsy but this is real engineering with quality parts. The motors, for example, are strong metal and are held to the aluminium base plate with substantial metal brackets.The packaging is great (pity about the picture of a teenager playing with it, does nothing for my street cred!). Everything is in labelled and numbered bags so you know what each part is and the instruction manual even tells you which bag to take the parts from (Ikea please note!). Everything you need is there, including the batteries and a charger with a UK plug, there's even a screwdriver.The controller came with the software pre-loaded but you can download from their website and modify it if you wish.When completed it worked first time and the mobile phone app controls it very well but you can work it without. The app is available free for Android and Apple, there may be other versions, I haven't looked.I would certainly recommend this for a teenager, for a hobbyist it's a bit too easy. At £55 (at time of writing) it is very good value.

The kit was assembled without a problem, but on switching on the tumbler it would not balance. It I would just move oneway and then the opposite way until it ran into an obstruction. I replaced the GY-521 MPU-6050 3-axis Gyroscope and Acceleration sensor module and it now performs correctly. The diagram in the instruction manual also has an error when compared to the assembly video; the orientation of the motor shafts is 180° different. the video orientation is with the motor shafts nearer to the base plate, which in my case works fine.

You put it together (be careful with the size and length of the screws. Charge it first. Turn it on and it works first time. No issues. If you want to understand the code and program it yourself? There are documents and zip files. But that's a whole lot of reading and understanding.

A good solid kit. Easy enough to assemble and worked first time. Now it is time to start playing with it.