Coldplay video

Introduction

I believe that many friends like Xiao Bian are full of wonderful memories of their colorful childhood. As a post-80s generation, although we didn't have mobile phones, computers or smart products as children, a four-wheel drive car, several glass balls and several building blocks can bring the purest joy in the world. Because of work, because of family, the beautiful memories of that childhood eventually stranded in the heart. When it comes to robots when they were young, they should be considered as Transformers. However, toys at that time did not have cool light changes, motor drive, or simple source control. With the continuous development and progress of intelligent technology, the domestic market of intelligent robots has become more and more popular in recent years. Whether it is various college student robot creation contests or new robot courses added in the school's new curriculum reform, the purpose is to stimulate children's interest in robots, so as to learn more knowledge.

The Vortex robot brought to you today is a robot product created by DFRobot with the original intention of teaching and entertaining children; The Vortex programming robot is the entry-level product of the engineering building block platform based on open source hardware. It has many advantages, such as programmability, diversified actions, and expanding the thinking of playing methods. Children can interact with robots directly through Bluetooth mode through mobile phone APP, saying goodbye to the monotony of traditional toy playing methods; At the same time, it can also learn simple programming and exercise the logical thinking ability of the brain. Next, let's try this magical robot with Xiaobian.

Open box display

Vortex The robot is packaged in a blue cardboard gift box, which is far more educational than those toys of cars and planes as a gift for children. The front of the packaging box is printed with a robot shape pattern, so that children can like this cute product at a glance and have a strong interest in it; On the back is a brief introduction to the connection mode of robot mobile phone APP and the play method of IPAD programming.

On the side of the packaging box, the robot's built-in five interesting play functions are explained and introduced through colorful graphic display. Before playing, parents can patiently explain the basic working principle of Vortex to their children, without too complicated introduction, so that they can generate more curiosity.

Because there is no semicircular slotting design around the packaging box, it is a little laborious to open it; Xiao Bian suggested using the flip open method to make it easier for children to open the box. The all white robot lies quietly in the box, and the surrounding is fixed by a thick sponge protective layer to effectively prevent collisions during transportation.

In addition to robots, there is also a guide to use, cartoon stickers, WhenDo programming manual and warranty card in the package list. The introduction guide gives a detailed introduction to the robot connection method, trial mode, technical parameters and component description. The editor suggests that you should read it carefully before trial play. After all, as a relatively novel technology video game product, this programming robot has many practical, interesting and practical functions that we are not familiar with, Avoid misoperation during use.

The front, back and side of the robot show that Vortex is only 120mm in diameter, 64mm in height and 260g in weight; Such a small size and weight can make children hold it in their hands at any time, which is highly portable. The outer shell of the robot is painted with white piano paint, which is very textured; The two steering wheels and motor driven tires installed at the bottom can enable it to perform movements in any direction, such as moving and dancing. With cool lighting effects, I believe that any child will love it.

Detail display

Vortex As an expression emperor, there are 32 kinds of diversified expressions in the program, which can be changed freely through mobile phone APP; Whether it is innocent, cheerful, sentimental or charming, it can be intuitively displayed through LED lights, and can be used as the intimate partner of children to experience happiness, anger, sadness and joy together.

The upper cover of the robot is covered by magnet adsorption, which can be easily removed. There are five LED flashing lights and a V-shaped prompt light on the top. The change of light can be controlled through the program, which greatly enriches the appearance and appearance of Vortex robot, especially in the dark environment at night.

The center of the top is the location of the battery compartment. The robot needs to be powered by four 1.5V dry batteries for endurance. I strongly recommend that a rechargeable lithium ion polymer battery be used at this location. Although I haven't personally tested the power consumption of Vortex robot, using lithium battery can give children a better experience of playing and more environmental protection.

The bottom of the robot is marked with the product logo of "VORTEX", and the central position is the loudspeaker that releases business. If the horn position is placed under the eyes of the front of the robot, will it be more suitable for the appearance of the robot? Similarly, the sound transmission effect of the horn at the side is better than that at the bottom.

The two small steel ball structures at the bottom are the universal wheels of the robot. Xiao Bian thinks that the design of this structure is somewhat unreasonable, because the friction will seriously affect the driving speed of the robot. It is recommended to replace it with the steering tire structure on the toy car. The edge part is the power switch position, which can control the power on and power off of the robot. This design is still in place, which is convenient for friends to unplug the battery when the robot is idle.

Most of the tires at the bottom of the robot are hidden inside the fuselage, and the proportion exposed outside is very small. This is in order to cooperate with the two steel pillars of the universal wheels to fully contact the ground, so that the flexibility of the robot becomes higher.

The edge part has six ABCDEF sensors, including a gray sensor and an infrared obstacle avoidance sensor; The color of the contact surface at the bottom of the robot can be recognized through the gray sensor, and the deviation of the motor relative to the color change area can be controlled by programming, so as to achieve the effect that the robot travels on a fixed track. The infrared obstacle avoidance sensor is that the robot can automatically avoid obstacles in front and continue to drive in the opposite direction when encountering obstacles in the process of movement.

The surface of the robot shell adopts the arc design scheme. The streamlined appearance and white piano paint baking process not only make the appearance beautiful, clear, cute, but also have a full flavor of scientific and technological elements. I believe that it will be loved by many children.

Demolition display

Such an intelligent and multi-functional robot makes Xiaobian feel a little itchy, but he can't help taking it apart. Use a screwdriver to loosen several screws at the bottom of the robot to separate the control motherboard of the robot.

It's funny to see that an 8 Ω 2W speaker speaker is embedded on the bottom cover, and the robot will make various sounds when performing various actions. There are those who are coquettish, angry, depressed, happy, and so on, which can be transmitted through this small speaker to interact with children.

The heart of the robot is this control board, which has LED matrix, motor, reduction gear and other important hardware; There are also sensing components such as light sensor, infrared receiver transmitter, loudspeaker, etc., which can drive two DC motors to run through programming, thus controlling the robot to execute various actions. You can also see that the solder joints of the solid-state capacitors, ceramic capacitors, crystal oscillators, optocouplers, IC chips and other electronic devices on the board are also perfect, which shows the high integration of this board.

Vortex The driving motor of the robot is different from the traditional racing toys. It is composed of N20 motor and 1:75 high-precision gearbox. Various small gears in the gearbox are clearly visible, and the meshing degree is also high, which can help the robot complete various complex and difficult actions.

The two big eyes on the front end of the robot are composed of two 5X5 LED matrices, which can display a variety of colors and shapes. A hardware module position is reserved in the middle. The small editor suggested adding functions similar to ultrasonic sensors. When ultrasonic waves hit impurities or interfaces, they will produce significant reflections and form echoes. After signal processing and program control actions, the robot can automatically avoid obstacles.

The different effects displayed by "Big Eyes" are very dynamic. The LED light source of each point is very soft, and will not hurt the eyes.

In combination with mobile phone APP, you can select 32 kinds of expression modes that are provided by the robot, which has been mentioned earlier. As a true expression emperor, Vortex can show the angry, cute, cool, cute, white eyed and other gestures to the children.

At the bottom of the control board, 6 dazzling LED light sources are also designed. In the video display at the back, the editor recorded the actual effect of the dazzling lights of the robot at night. You can have a look. It's really exciting to dance with the music rhythm.

The battery compartment has USB mode and Arduino IDE for program upload and connection. It should be noted that one of the change-over switches needs to be toggled when using it. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the robot tire and wheel hub are of separate structure, and there are many textures on the outer surface of the tire, which increases the friction coefficient and ensures that the robot will not slip.

APP cool play experience (with video)

Download and install the "Vortex" software by scanning the QR code connection above the Getting Started Guide. After installation, follow the instructions to connect through the mobile phone Bluetooth list search robot. However, the PIN pairing password needs to be entered during the connection process. No matter how you try, you will be prompted that the password is wrong. Finally, the connection is successful through another method.

Click the connection icon on the upper right corner of the main interface of the software, and put the mobile phone close to the robot and wait for a few seconds to realize automatic connection; After the connection is successful, the robot will rotate for several circles and sound a prompt at the same time. After the connection is successful, the robot firmware needs to be updated first. The whole process lasts about one minute.

Like ordinary racing toys, mobile phone gravity sensing can directly control the driving direction of the robot. Unfortunately, the speed cannot be adjusted. If you can increase the speed faster, I believe you will have a more exciting experience.

The bumper car mode is that two Vortex of the same model drive together for interactive entertainment. The robot that controls the rotation collides with each other. The winner will be the one who first knocks the other out of the pre-defined circle.

The play method of dancing and shaking is relatively simple. Just shaking the mobile phone can make the robot dance and jump, and the music effect is very cute; Each dance lasts about 30 seconds.

The robot soccer mode is the same as the bumper car. Through the control method similar to the game handle, the robot can hit the football to carry out the actions of dribbling, passing and shooting.

Leisure golf is a game that can only be played with the help of scenes. By waving a mobile phone, the rotating robot can run to the hole card. The player who enters the hole with the least number of strokes wins.

In the personalized setting mode, the robot role, expression, head and eye color, music, etc. can be set in detail, and each setting robot will have corresponding changes.

Programming presentation

Vortex It is a simple graphic programming software developed based on df4Scratch for Arduino and robot programming. It uses simple and easy to operate graphic programming tools, and is popular with users and players. Children can learn it easily. It not only supports data line connection, but also supports wireless communication. You can choose Bluetooth or data line communication to download the program to the motherboard; This book, "Adventures of Returning to the Planet VORTEX", mainly introduces programming through IPAD combined with WhenDo statements. There are many interesting examples for detailed explanation. Parents can help their children try to write programs while learning in the process of trial play.

I forgot to bring my iPad when I returned home for the Spring Festival. The window for submitting the report is about to close. I'm sorry that I can't show you the method of programming through the iPad. I will make it up when I come back. The manual gives detailed examples of the usage of sentences and various motor lighting modules of robots. As long as the program examples are followed, there is no problem.

Before the editor, he had an mBot educational robot, and its programming platform, mBlock, was also based on Arduino Scratch 2.0. The programming interface and style were quite similar. The editor showed several previous programming patterns. Scratch's statement writing method is also very simple. You can directly drag the statement content to be used to the right programming area; What is more considerate is that the connection of each sentence graph must be combined together to achieve continuity, which avoids the occurrence of logic errors before and after.

summary

About this evaluation post of Vortex programming robot, I have brought so much to you. There may be some things in the article that are not detailed or comprehensive. Please comment and correct. In general, this product is loved by many players and children because of its diversified playing methods and cute shape design; However, during the evaluation process, Xiaobian also found several shortcomings of the product, which are summarized as follows. I hope the manufacturer can consider the suggestions of Xiaobian.

1、 For this Vortex programming robot, it lacks certain DIY assembly elements. I suggest that children can assemble the robot by themselves, which not only improves their hands-on ability, but also makes it more playable.

2、 The sensor part of the robot is relatively small. Temperature and humidity sensors and ultrasonic sensors can also be added to make the small robot more intelligent.

3、 It is recommended to replace the dry battery power supply mode with the lithium battery, so that the trial can be more convenient and more environmentally friendly.

4、 It is recommended to change the speaker of the robot speaker from the bottom to the position below the eyes, which is more consistent with the shape of the "mouth".

5、 I hope to enrich the cool play methods of robots, such as adding voice module interaction, so that children can talk directly with robots.

Finally, I would like to thank Lei Feng.com for giving me a valuable evaluation opportunity, and wish all the staff good health and a happy New Year.