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Designed for kids aged 10 and up, the Mechenoid is both a toy and a robotics

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kit. It's being touted as a personal robot best friend. They say you can

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build anything and that programming is easy and innovative. They say your kid

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will learn the core values of science, technology, engineering, and

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mathematics. And you might think from all the positive reviews that the

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Mechoid is great, but let me tell you something. The Mechonoid is a terrible

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disappointment. It's an offensively bad box of empty promises. And all those

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positive reviews are only looking at the Mechenoid at a superficial level. It's

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going to be pretty interesting for me to be the sole voice of disscent on this

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one. So, let's get into it, shall we?

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I by Powers Revolt 2 has been redesigned from the ground up to utilize its small

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form factor to hold the power you need to game with confidence. Check out their

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link in the video description to learn more. Let me give you my thesis

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statement right off the top. The Mechenoid is a robotics building

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platform in name only because in reality

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everything that makes a robotics kit good has been sacrificed and compromised

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to blindly serve a singular objective to make this thing as cute as possible so

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that it will sell. As a result, the pieces are misshapen, the instructions

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are a mess, the assembly process is tedious, the programming options are

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laughably simplistic, and the price tag is a bloated $400. Opening up the box

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for the Mechenoid G15 KS, we see the

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1,188 pieces, of which 961 are actually just nuts and bolts,

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leaving 245 plastic pieces that actually comprise the robot itself. Now,

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traditional mechano mechano macano potato

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potato pieces are actually made out of metal, but the mechonoid pieces are

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plastic. I'm guessing because a fully metal robot of this size would just be

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absurdly expensive to produce. Of course, you could just make it smaller,

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but then it wouldn't have the cool factor that they seem to be banking on.

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What makes these pieces truly awful is not the fact that they're made out of

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plastic, but the fact that they are such enormous, weird, and specialized shapes.

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You see, traditional Macano pieces are modular and simple, allowing the builder

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to be creative with them. But pretty much everything in the

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GK15S's box was specifically designed to

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build one robot. Technically, you can

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build anything you like, but the pieces poor design makes this enormously

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difficult. There aren't nearly enough attachment holes to use, and the few

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that there are are not always positioned logically. There are also these random

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studs that poke out and completely get in the way, making many configurations

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impossible. The studs don't even serve to hold stuff together. They just simply

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prevent pieces from sliding around while you attach them with the nuts and bolts.

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I mean, what on earth am I supposed to do with this or this or this? They

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seriously couldn't break these up into smaller, more constituent parts with

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mounting points at predictable intervals. The only positive feature of

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these pieces is that many of them have square indentations designed to hold the

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nuts in place for when you're bolting everything together during assembly. So,

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let's talk about that, shall we? Even though the designers decided to abandon

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the triedand-true metal pieces that Macano is so well known for, they still

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decided to keep the traditional nut andbolt attachment system, something

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that people already complain about. Perhaps this was done to maintain

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compatibility with the traditional metal pieces. But no self-respecting builder

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is going to go anywhere near these plastic atrocities. So, frankly, I don't

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see the point. Surely, there must be a simpler way for kids to quickly attach

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these pieces together. Some kind of pin system that snaps in place, perhaps.

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Nope. Instead, your 10-year-old will be stuck assembling this oversized

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monstrosity for hours and hours of just screwing together pieces using these

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tiny nuts and bolts, all 961 of them.

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The entire process took me eight tedious hours. And unlike building something out

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of Lego, I did not find it interesting or enjoyable. And that's partly due to

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the dreadful instructions, which are so bad for so many reasons. Often they'll

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combine several steps into one, which greatly increases the chance of doing

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something wrong. Plus, there's almost never an image that shows what a fully

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assembled step is supposed to look like. And you can't just look at the next step

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for that because the model on the page underos constant changes in orientation.

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Also, sometimes you have to use a slightly different nut or bolt, but

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because they're all the same color, it's not immediately obvious. I hope you

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didn't accidentally mix any of these bolts together. Even while paying very

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close attention, I still made several mistakes, which can take quite a while

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to realize and even longer to fix because it usually involves

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disassembling some correct parts so that you can get to the incorrect parts. But

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ladies and gentlemen, the disappointment doesn't stop there. With everything

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finally attached and plugged in correctly, the Mechenoid runs through a

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startup diagnostic routine, asks for your name, and enters the main menu. You

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have to use voice commands to navigate the menus, which kind of feels like I'm

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on the phone with my cell phone provider. Control section of the command

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card or say list commands to hear all

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commands. If you are still having trouble, please go to www. The voice

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recognition seems to work well enough, but you do have to repeat yourself

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sometimes, and you also have to wait for the mechanoid to stop talking before it

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will listen for your commands, which can take a while. Here's a list of all the

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mechonoids menu commands. It can tell jokes and tell you what time it is,

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which is exactly as exciting as it sounds. Walk with me seems to work fine,

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but doesn't look like it can move backwards in this mode. Shake hands and

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high-five work pretty much just as you would expect them to. The motion control

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commands also seem to work fine. It all

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works. It's just not really that interesting. Forward.

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Now, the website lists three innovative ways to program. So, let's take a look

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at that. The first one, LIM, or learned intelligent movement, allows you to

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physically move the robot's arms around, which can be recorded and replayed along

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with your voice. I have to admit, I did have some fun with this one. No. No

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disassemble. You can then save this to the LIM library and recall it later. No

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disassemble. However, it's not nearly as precise as

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the commercials would imply. Mechanoid is so easy to program. Nice robots run.

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What a fail. It can't play the piano. Moving on to

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Ragd Doll Avatar. You can use your smartphone to directly remote control

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the movements of the mechonoid. This also works pretty well. You can even

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change the colors of the LEDs if you really want to. And finally, motion

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capture mode uses your smartphone's camera to record your movements, which

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the Mechenoid will attempt to mimic. This one really does not work very well.

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Sometimes the arms would flop around even while my own arms remained

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completely stationary. And that's it. It's just three different ways you can

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tell the robot to make noise and wave its arms around, which can be recorded

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and replayed. I don't consider that to be programming. For the real

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programming, you can download this Arduino library, but this only became

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available quite recently, so it was obviously never really a priority. Well,

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I guess if you understand C++, you can program the mechonoid any way you like.

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But honestly, why would you want to? And tell me, what is the point of having

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arms if the hands don't do anything? It

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would be cool if the hands actually worked and the fingers could grasp

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objects and pick stuff up, but they can't, which is boring. I guess you

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could take it apart and build the dinosaur, you know, if you want another

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10 tedious hours of bolting stuff together, but that sounds pretty boring,

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too. Now, some of you may be thinking, "Hey, my kids enjoyed the Mechonoid, and

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this guy isn't 10 years old, so why should his opinions matter?" Well, guess

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what? I was a kid once, and I remember that the best toys were the ones with

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great replay value. The toys I kept playing with and coming back to time and

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time again. For me, this was Lego, Nintendo, Pokémon, Game Maker 5. I still

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have all that stuff. And the other toys, they probably went to the trash or the

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thrift store. Once assembled, there's so little you can do with the Mechenoid

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that I don't see how it's going to maintain the interest of most children

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beyond, I don't know, a week or two. And

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after that, I predict the novelty will wear off and it'll be pushed into a

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corner and never played with again. The mechanoid is so terrible, in fact, that

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it feels to me like some other company designed it and then just slapped the

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McConnell label on top. Which is kind of funny because I wrote those words and

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then later discovered that it's actually true. Yes, my friends, it turns out that

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McConnell was acquired in 2013 by a

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company called SpinMaster. Oh, it all

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makes sense now. Spin Master are the ones to blame for this mess. Look at

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this article. Apparently, their idea of a renaissance is to add a bunch of

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cheap, cutesy, colorful crap into the Macano lineup. Okay. Okay. Spin Master,

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I know you're watching, and I've got something to say to you. Macano has

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existed for over a hundred years because they made good quality, longlasting,

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interesting products. Please try to exercise some responsibility and

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restraint so that you don't completely drive them into the ground with flashin

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the pan products like the Mechenoid. And hey, I've got a toy idea for you. How

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about a full metal McConnell robot with wheels, gears, axles, beams, LEDs,

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several motors, and a full array of sensors? Give it a fully programmable

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brain with remote control and give us instructions for building cool stuff.

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And then price it competitively. Now, that's a great robotics kit that would

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support STEM education. VEX Robotics figured this out, and so can you. And

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now, let's see if I can sell this thing. Maybe I can trade it in for a better toy

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at Toy Traers. That's like the big robot

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guy. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we don't want them at all, actually. You don't

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want them at all? No, not at all. I have one here that I'm not really having any

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luck selling. This one I actually sold when it was returned. So, try and get my

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money back if I'm lucky on that. Right. Okay. Thanks a lot. Oh, you're welcome.

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Yeah. Bye-bye. They won't even take it at toy traders.

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If the Mechonoid was just an overly expensive toy, I wouldn't care. But

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they're selling it as if it's a STEM educational robotics kit, and it's just

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not. The Mechenoid completely fails to

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deliver enough fun or educational value to justify its $400 price tag. Okay,

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everyone. That's all that's all I have to say. Uh I'm just I'm still I'm so

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shocked at all the positive reviews for this thing. Do you think I'm missing

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something? Am I wrong? Leave a comment below with your thoughts. And did you

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play with traditional mechano growing up? What did you think of it? Leave a

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comment about that, too. And go ahead and slap a like on this video or a

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dislike. Get subscribed or don't. Whatever. Check out our forums. Buy a

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t-shirt. I promise none of them cost $400. And check out my review of the VEX

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IQ Super Kit if you want to see what a proper robotics kit looks like. And

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hopefully I'll have a review of the Mindstorms EV3 coming soon as well. See

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you next time.