Thames & Kosmos Robotics Workshop Model Building & Science Experiment Kit | Build & Program 10 Robots with Ultrasonic Sensors | Program & Control with App for iOS & Android

Great condition, great product! Our child loves this, and instructions are well written so a child can follow them!

I've set this aside until I can devote full time on this. It's like a course in basic robotic design.

As an adult just starting in robotics this was a nice way to start. Knowing nothing of coding the program was easy to use.

At this point I do not know if the unit is defective of if the Blockly programming IDE is buggy. Tried to connect the robot on 3 different computers using the USB cable and 2 android devices using Bluetooth. Only 1 device was able to talk to the robot through Bluetooth. That lasted for few minutes until the robot started spinning its wheels for no reason and was turned off. When it was turned back on the Bluetooth connection could not be regained. My son was terribly disappointed at the failures especially after being extremely excited unwrapping this on Christmas morning.A support ticket was filed with Thames and Kosmos this morning so hopefully the company will reach out and fix the problem quickly. I will adjust my review when that happens.--- Continuation ---After two unanswered requests to Thames and Kosmos for help I finally went through Amazon. They shipped me a replacement right away and it arrived the next day. Here is the continuation of my review.Doing some research I found that the USB connection requires a driver to work. The VCD Driver from ftdichip.com is required but not included nor mentioned in the manual. I do want to clarify that the driver was installed for the first unit. It worked for a few test runs then stopped working. Rebooting did not help. However, the second unit works fine.Now I'm excited. Time to get the first project running, the Ultrasonic Turtle. Well it keeps going forward running into everything in its path until it runs out of cable. There's two problems here. First, when running with the USB it has to be connected at all times. Second, the program for the first project is not complete in that it does not even use the ultrasonic sensor! It just goes forward and stop after a 10 count. That's it (See the attached photo, it's the same as in the manual). Ok, time to put my programming skills to the test and write my own code. Simple code that continuously loops moving the robot forward while the sensor has a reading > 20 otherwise it will turn right. It ran like it should except that the reading from the ultrasonic sensor bounced sporadically to 0. This caused the program to go run the turn subroutine for no reason. This was while it was propped up with its wheels off the table due to the limited length of the cable.I put the robot on a tile floor and connected with Bluetooth on my Android tablet. It runs. Until the grout line. The motors cannot even get the robot over a 1/4" grout line. Even with fresh batteries. the one time it did go over, the back rolling ball bearing got stuck and popped off. Granted it's an oversized lego but these models are not build for durability.What I thought would be a great experience for my son turned into a huge disappointment. He is a big fan of Arduino and they do exactly what you program them to without having to be controlled by a computer or tablet.To summarize:Pros:- Programming is easy if you know scratch. My son is proficient there.- Looks niceCons:- Need special drivers for USB - not included and if you do not know how to admin windows you will not get this to work.- First unit was a dud.- Thames and Kosmos has not replied to either of my support requests- Weak Motors- Flimsy connectors- Spotty Bluetooth- Must be connected to computer or tablet to run.Sorry Thames and Kosmos, you should have done better testing with this one. It's not ready for prime time.

This looks so cool and a lot of work seems to have gone into it, but it's just not all they way there yet. It has a few flaws and it's not cheap.We had fun making Robots but had a tough time getting them to work once done. It seems like it should be more polished and working better before they released it. I'm hoping an app update might solve some of the issues. We are going to give it another shot and update our review.Notes:- Very spotty Blue Tooth can be very frustrating- Fun to build but hard to get working- Instruction book is large and well done

10 types of variable assemble, good age appropriate, detailed manual.

We tried 4 different devices .. 3 Android (2 phones, chrome book) and 1 iphone .... Nothing worked.y son was really disappointed... And I was going to use it as a homeschool credit if he built all the models. Basically a useless building set. Returned.

Best robotics set out there!