I picked up this kit to start exploring robotics with my kids. We've assembled the kit and run through several of the example sketches, plus a few of our own. Great documentation from the SparkFun team. It's probably best to consider this kit a platform for experimentation and learning, not a great bot for any specific purpose.

The chassis itself is pretty solid, though installing the battery pack requires a degree of digital dexterity typically reserved for stenographers and pickpockets. A few minor notes on how this kit could be better:

1: The discs for the hall effects sensors were losing their rubber backing and required some CA glue to repair before installing.

2: Our bot consistently hooks to the right when driving forward. I understand this is pretty common for two motor robots, but we can't seem to resolve the issue (no undue friction to be found).

3: The IR (line following) sensors are pretty temperamental. Just using the serial monitor, we can barely get them to register a difference in reading when they pass over a black line. Not confident that they will actually work for line following.

4: The suggested method for attaching the bumper "whiskers" is pretty hokey and prone to being torqued out of alignment. A few additional screws, washers and nuts produce a much more solid mounting. Photos here: http://bit.ly/1h1lb1r AND http://bit.ly/1fBZsw4

Despite these gripes, this has been a fun kit and great learning experience for me and my kids. Looking forward to more experimentation.

Very easy to assemble from the thorough instructions. I hope to find additional hardware to add to it. Will redbot handle a small camera?

Lots of bang for the buck. I also purchased the XBee experimenter kit and control mine via an arduino with a joystick shield. Only things missing is access to the unused digital pins and the stabilizer on the rear hangs on things when turning, would be nicer if it had a caster wheel. Despite those things it is still a great buy and will provide hours of learning.

I'm a total noob, and this kit and its accompanying Experiment Guide were a great intro to robotics for me. Already planning a search-and-rescue (for dust bunnies?) mod--the possibilities are endless. This bot will get you hooked!

The motors seem to really eat up alkaline batts, so I'd suggest buying at least the Li battery pack or equiv--the bigger the better. Also the Xbee option is a must for complete wireless control.

I assembled the redbot in 2 hours with no problems, and had the drivers installed and was running the example programs about 25 minutes later. The instructions and photos were crystal clear (and I have never assembled any other electronic project). The experiment guide is also clearly written and makes it easy to pick up basic programming.

My only hesitation --> I eventually want to learn how to use an arduino to control a robot that I've built from basic components (not a kit). The redbot relies on using its own library of packaged subroutines to drive the motors and sensors. It's a great learning tool but just gets me a small step toward my goal.

Have assembled RedBot and am working through the experiments having lots of fun. Just on experiment 3 now. Don't ever want to grow up. (78 in 2 weeks) Only one problem in that the motors are not matched very well so have to reprogram using motors left and motors right by trial and error

Our funds were very limited and we wanted to create a comprehensive curriculum for teens that will introduce them to the world of embedded computing, programming and robotics. So far this bot has met all our expectations. There is one concern, though, and has to do with the Whiskers. Since it will be handled by young teens, the whiskers are a potential risk. Perhaps covering the sharp ends may mitigate the risk.

The kit goes together well with some patience. No hammers required :-) Example 9 does not match the output expected from the web page. The two pages on assembly and coding worked very well. I would prefer to have something more than just a piece of plastic for the rear support, like a small roller caster. The foot just acts as a drag brake.

I received my kit and found it a "snap" (pun intended) to put together. It is designed well and worked immediately without having to resort to any modifications or head scratching. Not having to solder or use special tools is also a plus.

I do have one minor criticism. It was not clear where to exactly mount the bumper sensor assembly. The unit I received is somewhat different from the pictures in the assembly instructions. I used the slot instead of the holes and it worked perfectly.

I'm really having fun playing with this thing. I'm a mechanical engineering senior and this is perfect for me to dive a little deeper into robotics!

It's a sturdy, chunky and capable bot, but pinching the parts together required more hand strength than is reasonable. Kids would give up on assembly (I nearly did). Forget about snapping in the battery pack unless you do it before putting on the top surface. I much prefer the earlier versions of the Redbot with the spacers and little screws. This BlackBot really tested my patience.

This is a pretty good kit for someone like me who's interested in getting into robotics but has little experience with electronics. The instructions were very good and I was able to get some things working with one day's effort. If there's anything that the instructions undersold, it was the amount of effort it takes to snap-together some of the plastic chassis pieces. I really had to force some of them, to the point that I was afraid I was going to break something (but I didn't). The accompanying software library is easy to pick up and understand if you have have some prior programming experience (especially Arduino programming).

My main complaint about this kit is the lack of quality control for some of the parts. One of the rubber hubs in the wheel encoder kit did not have a hole pre-drilled and so I had to fix that so that it could be attached to the motor. One of the standoffs for the mechanical bumpers was not threaded properly, so it couldn't hold the screw that would have kept that part in place. Seemingly small quality issues like these made it difficult to complete some of the experiments, which was frustrating. I guess I'll have to order replacement parts if I ever want those to work.

I bought one with the purpose of teaching 8th graders robotics. The chassis is stiff to put the tabs in, and I'm not sure about longevity, I doubt I'll have students assemble and disassemble year after year. The wiring and features are straight forward. The only reason I fail to give this 5 stars, is the touch sensors are fairly cludged together. I'm designing a 3d printed bracket to keep them from wobbling all over the place. Barring that, I have several cheap spring loaded switches that can replace these.

My daughter and I put this together and have been going through the experiments. The kit has been great so far with one exception: the wheel encoder kit that came with it. One of the discs that is meant to attach to the motor doesn't have a hole for the shaft to go through, and the rubber is too thick to just punch through. This means we can't do any of the experiments that require the wheel encoder which is disappointing.

This is a very well designed and manufactured robot and I could recommend it to anyone who wants to get into robots. The RN Bluetooth module works well with the RedBot board. One issue I had was the plastic standoff for the bumpers, because I managed to cross thread it and it no longer tightens.

we put it together and checked and rechecked but it did not respond. Only thing I can think of is the motors are defective.

Once assembled, the robot provides you with a very precise way to make a program interact with the physical world.

I found the kit to be very complete and the instructions on line to be very clear and easy to follow. I truly enjoyed the build process. The end result is a very nice little robot kit that I can use to get me going in robotics (which is why I bought this kit).

Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to do very much with this kit since completing the build. I have followed a couple of the online sketches to make the robot move. But I have not had time yet to really get into doing something.

However, I am very excited and looking forward to working through more of the online tutorials and then expanding on things and seeing where it takes me.

What would really help me is if there were a tutorial on how to convince the folks at my day job to not expect me to show up or do any real work yet still send me my paycheck. That would definitely be something useful.

The League Of Amazing Programmers (www.jointheleague.org), an after-school program that teaches kids computer programming starting in the 5th grade, used the RedBot kit in a week-long workshop. The kids built the robot and then programmed it. It worked very well and the kids learned and loved the workshop. Nice work SparkFun!

My six year old son enjoyed building this kit with some help from me. Some of the struts and mounts are very tight fitting into the top and bottom plates of the Shadow chassis, so he required my help joining these parts together. The motors included in the kit provide a lot of speed under minimal load. The SparkFun Inventor’s Kit for RedBot Experiment Guide(SIK REG) is nice. I wish that I could print it out to look similar to the Sparkfun Inventor Kit manual. That being said, I understand why it is formatted to be viewed online. All of the embedded links help to provide further instruction on each of the components in the kit.

This is a redux of a system that's been around for several years - I have a four wheel drive version that I built a couple of years ago - but it doesn't run w/o a connection to the programming computer. This one DOES run independently - however it does not accept commands remotely (well, why not, no wifi, bluetooth, zigbee, tinfoilhat comm, whatever).

Works OK with the demo/experimental software but that's it - not much on GitHub beyond that.

And, as I have whined and otherwise pointed out in other post the Arduino development environment is severely lacking - no trace, no way to see what's going on in the CPU, etc. It's so 1970s that I'm looking at my Z80 builds and remembering how did hand-builds of binary code using the Z80 instruction set docs. This is not quite so painful but I would like a more 'useful' environment. Has anyone working with Arduino heard of Ecipse? CCS? It's been around for dog's years and is a most pleasant development environment - I use it to do serious real time development with various TI devices - and people pay me to do that - and pay me a lot, too...

Not that I'm looking for a paying deal with this gizmo - I'm more interested in teaching 4-5-6th graders how to do development in a 'real' environment.

OK, I can bash this kit to make it work - like following, object avoidance, etc. but I'm not seeing much else in terms of using the capabilities of the 'duino devices - and that's where I say 'meh' - nice try but there are lots of things under the sun to mess with - and this is NOT one of the ones I'm spending my time with - or my student's time with.

Give us an RTOS - then I'm ready to go.

No RTOS = useless gizmo.

ss/wb

I am developing a robot system for teaching simple programming to middle school children, and this robot would work well for that. Compared to the mbot from MakeBlock, the RedBot is better made, the line follower board is better (3 sensors rather than only two) and using the wheel encoders you can control how far it moves (not an option for the mbot). What is lacking is the block-oriented programming available for the mbot, so it will be a challenge for beginning school kids to make programs for it. If someone reading this could adapt the MakeBlock (open-source) program to run the RedBot, it would clearly be the better choice. Should be fairly easy, as both bots use the arduino. Any takers?

My son (age 10) and I are having a really great time putting this thing together. The instructions are clear and we already have the little-bot rolling around and chirp'n like R2D2!