Just got a notification about this video today.
Looks like a really fun way to get kids interested in programming, honestly I wish I had this as a kid- seems like the programming challenges are almost endless! What do y’all think?
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Omg it’s a kiwi drive…
Other than that. it is going to be interesting to see if this evolves into something like IQ/V5 or into something like workcell.
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Almost seems like they may be heading towards using these robots to play robot-soccer…seems like that could be pretty fun!
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It looks cool and an interesting choice of using a 3 wheel (kiwi) drive base. I’m interested in what the “ai.” class has in it (see the python code at the end of the video) and what that can do. I wonder if the robot shells come in colors so you could play soccer, but figure out not to kick it to the opposing teams.
Normally I’m against “appliance robots” (Dash, Sphero, etc,) since they tend to grab interest for awhile and then the coders get bored with them. (I will say that the Spehero Bolt with the clear plastic shell is kind of cool, you can see how it works and it has a 8x8 LED matrix for a display) A few of my elementary schools have sets of the appliance bots and they don’t get lots of use.
I’ve warmed some to the GO robot (specifically the 4 port brain). It’s pretty easy to build a small claw bot (2 motor drive, 1 shoulder, 1 claw) and replace the claw with the electromagnet to pick up small metal items. You have design choices and programming is still available. There have been times that I’ve wished for another port to give me 4 motors and a sensor, but for $32 a brain I can see why. But the brain does work with the VIQ remote control, so that is a bonus.
It will be interesting to see what the price point for Aim will be when it comes out.
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really fun
I’m not in v5 but yk I want to do this
According to the link in the video description, “ VEX AIM Coding Robot
Coming Late 2024
$179
SKU: 249-8581”
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That isn’t a bad price point for what it is. It also isn’t great. This is especially a bad price if the intent is to be used in schools (which I presume it is intended for).
There are plenty of schools and school districts that are economically disadvantaged in regions where there aren’t very many STEM education grants.
I think if it is a good price really depends on a few factors:
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What else it comes with (balls, disks, literature, etc).
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If the smiley face on top is an LCD screen that can be programmed to display whatever the user wants. This doesn’t have as much significance, but it would have more educational value for the more advanced students.
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One of my “robot blog feeds” has the AIM as a post.
New ship date is Q1/Q2 2025, so over year from when we first saw it here. And we have a price of $157.52
I’m pretty excited, it comes with April tags on stands and the ability in software to read the tags. I wonder how long to get a new VIQ vision device that can do the same thing, Lots of possibilities.
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