I would like to build a robot and learn to code at the same time. Investing in a robot kit would be like purchasing a new computer I could not afford to do it regularly. I will purchase a computer every five years and what I need from this project will be longevity. My concern with the Kondo is that certain features may only be available in Japanese. I can’t read or speak Japanese. I’d really like to be able to program my robot. The Kondo flips are just amazing and I would purchase the body suit and upgrade over time. Being able to upgrade the kit is important to me as I would have it for some time.
I will be a beginner to robotics and at the end of the five years I’d hope to be a pro. Could any of you advise which kit I should go for?
Okay forget the body suit I’d much prefer the board. When you say advanced user could a beginner start on that set up? What is the support like for the Kondo? Would I find people that would help me study and get up to speed?
Bioloid uses open source software. I could potentially have a good play around with this. Its all pipedreams now but I’d like to figure out the code to use a smartphone as a wireless brain.
Can’t wait to get started on this five year project.
ill be in new york from sunday. if i ordered the robot and the roboard can it get to me by the following weekend? anything else i would need to purchase eg soldering and tool kits? i fly back to london on the monday. was also looking at the hovis. android compatibility is interesting. id like to play around with voice command and getting the robot to answer with speech. can i do that with the roboard?
You can upgrade the KHR-2HV with the body suit, but also the RoBoard Single Board computer. Keep in mind that this setup is for advanced users.
The Bioloid comprehensive kit is a reconfigurable robot with a decent processor. You would choose this robot if you wanted to experiment with humanoids, multi-legged robots, robot arms, wheeled robots etc. You can also purchase additional motors and brackets.
Kondo was one of the first humanoid robots on the market and is still one of the best. The controller which comes with the basic kit is … basic. Upgrading to the RoBoard is a giant step since it’s running a full operating system. The RoBoard has basic documentation and there is a small English user community, but it is much smaller than that of Bioloid. Wither either robot, consider yourself mostly on your own; people may help if you encounter issues, but you will be hard pressed to find anyone who will teach you.
If you’re planning to work with a humanoid robot for 5 years, you will find the Bioloid to be restrictive because of the microcontroller; the RoBoard can accept a variety of additional (third party) sensors (you can add foot sensors, IMU, webcam, BlueTooth, WiFi etc.). However, if you wanted to try multi-legged robots during this time, you would need to choose the Bioloid.
We have the KHR-2HV and the RB-110 Starter Kit are in stock, so add them to your cart to see the various shipping options; there will almost certainly be one or two which get them to you very quickly. Android has not yet been loaded on the RoBoard (Android so far has been reserved for cell phones and tablets, not really for computers). The RoBoard is a full computer and you can certainly install speech to text and text to speech software. If you are new to robotics, there will be a learning curve to getting up and running with a Kondo and a RoBoard (it’s pretty advanced and not a lot of documentation).
