Genius Factory Push Button Programming Robot Entry-Level programmable Robot Designed to Promote and Develop STEM Education.

This kit reminds me of a physical incarnation of some of the "hour of code" projects on code.org that I've seen my kids do. You can program the robot with a sequence of forward, left and right commands to maneuver it around a physical landscape. While the kit is somewhat clever, I feel like it's limited in it's utility.My 11 year old quickly lost interest after a couple of programs. I think that one of the biggest shortfalls of this kit is that it does not include any obstacles to "solve" by programming the robot. Without a maze or course to go through, the programming seems kind of random. Maybe a printed poster with a path to try and follow would be more useful.The other difficulty that I had was that the robot was not super predictable. The left motor was slightly more powerful than the right which meant that it had trouble tracking straight. Turning at half second intervals was also not super predictable, and difficult to repeatedly get the same angle turn.While it wasn't rocket science to put it together, the instructions were a poorly photocopied black and white sheet of paper. It was difficult to see the pictures clearly. The biggest part that I struggled with was mounting the battery box. It seemed like there should have been a notch for the wires to cleanly come out the sides without getting smushed. Instead I eventually routed them underneath the battery box which felt a little odd.While I appreciate the cleverness of a push button programming interface, it seems hard to imagine teaching programming without going beyond manually repeated single step procedures. I would prefer a toy that incorporates looping, conditionals and maybe sensors for events. Maybe these could be add-ons? Or maybe the kit could include a USB port for transferring scratch programs?This isn't a bad kit, but I think that it could do more.

This is a clever kit that builds a nice robot for playing with. You can't expand it as it ships (but I am sure some hacker could) and that's fine. It is meant to be a kit for kids and a chance to explore basic concepts of robotics. When assembled the robot is programmed through push buttons that allow the user to enter right turn, left turn and forward motion instructions, then play them back. (sorry no reverse) Each movement is short, so for a full turn in any direction you need to press the turn button multiple times. A lot of fun can be had with is and it looks like what people expect a robot kit to look.That is is you can read the instructions.The kit I received had what looked to be a fifth generation photocopy of what have been good instructions. There are only a few steps and a few parts, but I still managed to put it together wrong the first time. The design is clever and I don't know why it is hobbled in this way. There is no web site to download a good copy of instructions either. The design and manufacture of the parts indicates effort was put into the kit, so I don't know why they skimped on the instructions.

Full disclosure - I got this for me, and I'm not a teenager. I was curious about robotics so I thought I'd start with something really entry-level. This is a well designed kit that includes everything you need except two AA batteries and phillips screwdriver. Once assembled, you program it to move left, right, or forward by pressing buttons on the circuit board. There is no interface to a computer (this is entry level for kids).The only negative was the instruction sheet. It was a single sheet of paper in black and white with the images too dark to understand. You can sort of see the images, and the wording is pretty scant. While this is fine for me (part of the "adventure" and learning), it might be really frustrating for the target audience of teenagers. It's a simple kit, so it's not a show stopper, just possibly frustrating.I thought the $20 price tag was a little steep, but it's an easy way to see your first exposure to something robotic.

We didn't get any instructions with our kit. My 13 year old worked on it for about an hour to see if he could figure it out with no luck.

Do yourself a favor; if you buy this, save the color picture of the instructions off somewhere to make sure you have a copy.As delivered, the black and white copy of the instructions was nearly unreadable. It took a fair amount of deductive reasoning and examination of the parts bin and perusal of the images from adjacent steps to figure out what was supposed to happen in some of the steps. The images were almost useless. If you refer to the color images in the ad, you'll be far better off.One of the first things you'll notice is no batteries are included. Not a big deal. A slight deal is that the ad refers to "AAA" batteries, but the manual refers to "AA" batteries. It's "AA" that you'll want. The next thing you'll notice is that the very first thing you install, that battery carrier, has two leads coming off the carrier in a badly engineered location, with no clearance for the wires in the place it will be screwed in tight in the frame. Then you'll notice they didn't include a small Phillips tool, either. Then you'll begin the process of trying to make out details in very poor black and white photos, eventually coming up with a complete robot in under 10 minutes. During that 10 minutes, you'll learn nothing about circuit theory, electronics, microcontrollers, motors, electromagnetism, conduction, voltage, electromotive force, NOTHING. Instead, you'll learn: these 6 screws go here, this pushed in there, push these 4 buttons according to the following script. That's it. Honestly, this kit is STEM in the way assembling an IKEA end table is STEM. It's not.When you're done, if you have the forethought to have batteries and screwdrivers around, you've got a simple machine capable of executing turtle geometry - so many degrees of left, so many degrees of right, and forward. That's it. Ignoring the complete lack of STEM on the way to the finished product, the finished product isn't terribly interesting.If you're looking for a STEM gift in this price range, an Arduino kit makes a whole lot more sense.