mBot S.T.E.M. Educational Robot - Great intro to robotics?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,071 words · ~10 min read
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Ever since I and the rest of Linus Media Group signed up for CES 2014, I've
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received hundreds, perhaps thousands of spammy promotional emails. It's mostly
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nonsense and garbage products, and I've been clearing it out as usual when one
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of them finally caught my eye. Meet the Embot, a $49 STEM educational robot for
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children. I've been interested in robotics ever since I was a kid. So,
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let's find out if the Embot can live up to its promise of one robot per child.
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First things first, $49 is just the Kickstarter price. If you want an Embot
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today, it'll cost you $79. That doesn't include shipping. And on top of that, I
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had to pay DHL $20 in import fees from
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Taiwan. And I'm not the only one. Anyway, let's take a look at what we get
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in the box. There's the MCore microchip, which is the brain of the robot,
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ultrasonic and light sensors, a Bluetooth module if you got the Bluetooth version, two gears that will
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be used as wheels, two motors to power the wheels, a little ball wheel, a
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battery pack, a single piece aluminum chassis, an IR remote with no included
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battery, a testing mat, a motor shaft repair kit, an instructional booklet, a
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screwdriver, and some screws, bolts, and cables. Assembly is supposed to take 10
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easy minutes, but it took me longer for a couple of reasons. Like, why are the
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instructions supposed to be read clockwise? Also, the included
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screwdriver is only compatible with one type of screw. There's no easy way to
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tighten the bolts, and the instructions fail to mention that there's a hex
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wrench on the other side of the screwdriver bit. Once the MCore
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microchip has been screwed on, detaching the velcroed on battery pack and
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managing cables is quite difficult since there's not much room. Also, one of the
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wires on one of my motors was completely detached. This was an easy fix for me,
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but I did some research and it turns out the quality assurance on the motors in
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particular has been a problem for Make Block before. Anyway, with the robot
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assembled, it's finally time to download and install the MBLOC software. But
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first, you have to manually install Adobe Air if you don't have it already.
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Then you can install the MBLOC software. But according to the video instructions,
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before I can get to programming, there's still more I need to do. First, I need
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to select the MBOT board. Then select the MBOT extension. Then you have to
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select COM 28 as the serial port. I
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looked everywhere for COM28 until realizing that it's referring to a USB
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port and COM 4 works just as well. And then you have to update the firmware.
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And after that, you still have to download, install, and link Arduino
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drivers until finally you can start uploading code to the MBOT. That's a lot
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of steps to go through before you've even started programming. Sure, it all
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seems obvious once you know what to do, but the Embot is supposed to be a
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starter robot for children. Kids and Linus Media Group employees need very
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clear, comprehensive instructions with as few steps and as little frustration
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as possible. Anyway, I finally got to programming with the MBLOCK software.
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Now, this is actually a modified version of Scratch, which was developed by MIT
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to teach kids about programming. Scratch is pretty cool, and it reminds me of
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when I was a kid learning programming with Game Maker 5. The Scratch
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programming automatically converts itself into Arduino code which is ready
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to be uploaded onto the embot. I think that's pretty cool since it makes it
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easy to see exactly what the graphical scratch programming looks like in real
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textbased code. Anyway, I went through all the videos and programmed the embot
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as instructed and I tried a bunch of my own programming. Programming the embot
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is mostly straightforward, but only when it works. More on that later. The video
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tutorials give you a few ideas of what the embot can do, but I ran out of
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tutorials quickly, and I found myself thinking, "Is that all?" The most
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interesting things you can do, in no particular order, are follow a line,
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crudely, avoid obstacles, and remote control the ambot with the remote or
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Bluetooth. You can also make colored LEDs flash and make noise with the
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buzzer, but you don't really need a robot for that. And you can detect the
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ambient brightness of the room with the included light sensor on the M core, but
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I don't really see the point. And even the associated tutorial doesn't do
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anything with it except display the value on screen. I feel like it would
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have been better to use this in place of the current two bottom-mounted line
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following light sensors, which can only detect black or white, meaning that it
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only has four states, zero, 1, 2, and
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three. This makes smooth PID line following impossible. Also, I don't see
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that there's any way to do more than one thing at a time, like flashing LEDs
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while simultaneously line following. Two different things which shouldn't
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interfere, but they do. It all gets lumped together. This is because of the
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decision to base the embot on Arduino, which doesn't support multi-threading.
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Bummer. I mean, maybe this is all just an issue of expectation management. The
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Kickstarter campaign really had me excited for the Embot, but you need
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additional hardware to do some of the cool things they show off. The stock
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Embot only assembles in one way, and it comes with just two motors for the two
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wheels, though the RJ25 ports can support more motors. If you want extra
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sensors or a robotic ARM for your Embot, you'll have to buy those. This is par
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for the course when it comes to robotics, but because of the Embot's
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single piece aluminum chassis, it's not nearly as modular as other robotics
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kits. This may be a good or a bad thing depending upon what you want the MBOT
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for. The hardware is fine. It's the MB block software that has issues. It was
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frustrating to install and even more frustrating to use. Sometimes the MBOT
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wouldn't be detected and sometimes it wouldn't accept code. And here's a
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strange problem. It seems like after you upload your first Arduino code to the
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MBOT, certain Scratch script modules no longer work, even though they previously
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did work, as shown in the video tutorials. Also, at some point I lost
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the ability to upload code from my work computer completely. I kept getting this
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error. Also, I could never get the ultrasonic sensor to work. No matter
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what computer I used, I kept getting the error undefined reference to count pulse
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ASM. I told make block about my software problems and they quickly updated the
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software. Now the ultrasonic sensor works and I can upload code from my work
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computer again. That's great. But then all my LED programming became
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non-functional and I had to redo it. There are still other issues with the
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software. I sincerely hope that these remaining problems can also be resolved.
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If they are, the MBOT could be a worthwhile purchase. Overall, I spent
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more time trying to get the MBOT to work than I did actually programming and
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using it. Now, there's a graphic on the Kickstarter page favorably comparing the
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MBOT to three other competing robotic systems. At first glance, it looks like
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the MBOT is clearly superior. Then, you look a little closer and realize, wait a
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minute, an RGB LED isn't a sensor. Neither is a buzzer. And these other
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robots are poorly represented. For example, the Lego Mindstorm's
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educational base set has a ton of stuff not listed in this graphic. There's a
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touch sensor, lots of gears, wheels, and beams, an integrated display with
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buttons, a speaker, and enclosed PCP, and three servo motors with built-in
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tachometers for a total of nearly 500 parts with nearly unlimited ways to
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assemble it all. Of course, it's a more expensive $250, and this came out 8
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years ago. The Parallax Arduino Shield seems like a much more fair comparison,
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and it certainly looks like the Embot has much better hardware for less money,
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but I can't say for sure since I've never used the Parallax Arduino Shield
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robot kit. I've also never used the VEX IQ robot. But hey, VEX, Parallax, Lego
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Tetricx. If you guys want to send any of your robots to us for a review, go right
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ahead. I'll review it. Get in here. So, anyway, here's the question. If the MBOT
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really was $50 total, and if all the
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problems with the software were resolved, would the MBOT be a worthwhile
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purchase? Sure. At that point, the only issue I can see is that any kid who's
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really interested in robotics is going to quickly outgrow the Embot because of
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its limited hardware and singular method of construction. That makes a product
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like the Embot more appropriate for educational settings where kids can
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learn everything they can from it and then move on to bigger and better
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things, allowing the next group of kids to have their turn. It's not necessary
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for every single child to own an Embot since every kid is not going to care
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about robotics. So, if you or your child or your class is interested in robotics,
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I cannot recommend the Embot. There are plenty of more wellestablished brands
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for you to choose from like VEX Robotics, Tetris, Mindstorms, and so on.
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I recommend that you spend the extra money and get a robotics kit that will
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allow a much greater range of learning and
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experimentation. And on the subject of fixing things and putting stuff
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together, today's episode sponsor is iFixit. You've probably used or at least
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on any purchase of $50 or more. So head on over to our link, that's
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ifixit.com/Linus, and save on some awesome tools today. So, what do you
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guys think? Was I too hard on the embot? Do you have one? And if so, what do you
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think about it? Are you guys interested in seeing more videos about robotics in
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the future? And how do you feel about me, Taran, as a host? Hello, by the way,
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if you haven't seen me before. Let us know in the comments. Anyway, time for
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Linus' new outro. If this video sucked, you know what to do. But if it was
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Fun. I'll see you around.