For those that aren't aware, this is designed for the RoboMaster robotics league in China, which is sponsored (owned?) by DJI in the first place.<p>Overview of the competition series itself: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYsCyMC-0w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYsCyMC-0w</a><p>Video of the 2018 Finals: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNQfaf_Cr0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNQfaf_Cr0</a><p>Bloomberg video about the RoboMaster S1: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs</a>
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.
My kids went through Sphero, Mindstorms and a couple of other robots where you can program them in Scratch and similar.
To me such a toy would have been a godsend.
They got bored pretty quickly.<p>Another issue is that gimbal adds to video quality but also to cost.<p>Finally with the hype, I was expecting a nice ready to fly FPV drone.<p>So I'm a bit meh about this toy.
DJI is amazing. They sell their drone IMU+RF module separately to make your own drones, and their new 4K Osmo Pocket comes with me everywhere I go. Few companies are making such innovative hardware.
I like it. Wish it came with an arm instead of a turret. We have a Parrot Mambo in our home. The turret was used for a few days and then removed. It added a lot of bulk and halved the flight time.
This website has a major flaw. When I click the buy button it says not available in your country. I was thinking about getting this for my nephew who lives in the USA while I live in Australia.
I know I'm obviously a small percentage that is outside USA that could buy and get it delivered to a local address but it still seems crazy not to even allow that.<p>I know I could vpn it but I don't think that should be necessary.
Seems A lot like Robocode, but with hardware and less destruction.<p>(robocode seems to still be going, though I haven't looked at it in a while..)<p><a href="http://robowiki.net/wiki/Robocode" rel="nofollow">http://robowiki.net/wiki/Robocode</a><p><a href="https://robocode.sourceforge.io" rel="nofollow">https://robocode.sourceforge.io</a>
So, how about a DIY variant of this?<p>- Start with a DonkeyCar with Jetson Nano<p>- add mecanum wheels (why not three instead of four?)<p>- add a weapon or laser pointer or whatever<p>On the other hand, do we really want to push gamification of autonomous weapon systems?
DJI taking the time to write a page for the S1 in my language only to at the very end tell me "Not available in your region" is toying with my emotions and heartbreaking
Interesting how an educational robot project/competition always needs to involve the careful exercising of ballistics against a target. Descartes clearly got it all wrong and should have instead formulated his proposition as "I fire ma lazerz, therefore I am". By that definition, the singularity is clearly near.
Bloomberg Businessweek created an excellent video profile of how this kit fits in robotics education and STEAM programs:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs</a>
I know this is a yet-to-be released product and it says Python is supported, but does anyone know if it is possible to install 3rd party libraries and interact with the filesystem?<p>Interested in installing a webserver like flask on here.
This looks pretty damn cool and I'd like to try it. But weird that the western media hasn't picked up this story in light of all their coverage on China stealing IP...
My American girlfriend's immediate response: seems militaristic and violent.<p>My daughter was turned off from robotics at a young age. She joined firstego league and there was a ton of domineering "boy energy" in her school. She enjoyed creating and personalizing the robots in unique ways, the boys wanted "to win".<p>This is what happens when you have a bunch of dudes designing educational robot toys.
Wow so crowdsourcing the military industrial complex's artificial intelligence KILLBOTS?<p>This almost looks like it's satire, but it's completely real and for sale, just $499!<p>Reminds me of this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM</a>
imo giving way to kids impulses like fighting might be commercially the most viable thing - educationally it is not.
It is always much easier to be destructive than constructive.
However, we should try to teach our kids the latter. Achieving win-win does not usually come from impulse but from empathy.<p>Although it is hard, I try to avoid fighting games and media for my kids as much as I can and try to teach them competing in more creative ways...