Adeept Smart Robot Car Kit for Raspberry Pi Pico, DIY STEM Robotic Kits

The car kit is packed very well and it is easy to organize the parts. This is important because there are a lot of parts. The downloaded instructions are pretty clear and with patience any adult should be able to put it together, as well as a younger person with an adult’s help. A great little tutorial is included in the instructions that give you lessons on every aspect of the build. Then, once completed, this thing is a blast play with. I have been wanting to build something like this with a raspberry pi pico and I am not disappointed.

Please note that all except one of the 4 and 5 star reviews of this product came from Amazon Vine reviewers who received the kit for free, for review purposes. I purchased 3 of these kits, and this company's Banana Pi Pico W robot, for my students. I also helped two of my students build their Adeept robot kits. I will never again buy anything from this vendor. The app for this robot is not designed for Apple phones, something which is not mentioned in the listing, and you do not learn until you download the instructions. The Android app is not available on the Google Play Store, so you must side load it directly from the Adeept website (a process that is not described by Adeept, and requires you to disable Android's security for the installation). This means, of course, that they do not need to ensure that the app is compatible with the most recent versions of Android. Therefore, don't be surprised when you side load the app (as I did), and Android tells you that the app is outdated, unsafe and won't work on your version of Android. The OLED display for one of the kits had reversed wires for VCC and Ground, and it fried the display when I ran a program. Many of the coding samples are simply awful. Lots of junk comments (code which has been disabled, and therefore should be simply deleted), junk code (code which does nothing), and sloppy or incorrect code. I assembled 3 of these kits (plus this company's Banana Pi Pico W robot and 4WD Raspberry Pi Pico W Omni-Directional Mecanum Wheels Robotic Car Kit) and got them working only because I know how to create my own MicroPython code (including a browser based control for the robot), and I replaced the fried OLED display and the wiring. There are some excellent robot kit manufactures (such as SunFounder and Elecfreaks) that provide quality components, apps that you do not need to side load and abundant technical support. This manufacturer is not one of them. I wish it was possible to give a vendor zero stars, because I would do so in this case. I suggest avoiding this kit and this manufacturer.

First off let me say this is not my first Robot Rodeo. I've built some from kits and some from scratch and I've been an electronic hobbyist for many decades. Second, I haven't yet built this robot but what I have done is inventoried the parts and read every tutorial (16 of them) from beginning to end as well as the assembly instructions and some auxiliary information provided. Spoiler alert - I'm very impressed with this kit. As I list out the pros I'll try and think if there are any cons. Pros: - The choice of the Raspberry Pi Pico for the main controller. Inexpensive and more available than a traditional Raspberry Pi, for those who want to adventure further they should be able to find Picos on the market. Besides being more affordable and available, in my opinion, the Pico is a far better robot controller (it is a micro controller after all) than a Pi (it is a micro computer after all with a lot more overhead). - Very good tutorials. I would recommend beginners start with tutorial 1 and do them sequentially and only build the robot when they get to the tutorial that requires the robot platform. Actually before that follow the instructions in the file named "3 Configure Raspberry Pi Pico environment" as this explains how to get micropython working on the Pico. - Background information imbedded in the tutorials. Often a bit of background it offered to supplement the main goal of the tutorial of just getting the task done. For example, the line tracking tutorial talks a bit about the theory of how the line tracking module works using reflected light. - Speaking of micropython this is a great choice for a learning platform like this as python in general is recognized as one of the most readable programming languages available. The code in the tutorials should be easy to follow for people just starting off. - No missing parts - I've had kits that were missing a small but essential part and it stopped me dead in my path until I could find the part. Not so in this case. Cons: - I really can't think of anything worth mentioning. Overall, I'm a big fan of this kit and Adeept as well. Item: Adeept Smart Car Kit Compatible with Raspberry Pi Pico, Line Tracking, Obstacle Avoidance, Colorful Light, DIY STEM IR Remote Controlled Educational Robot Car Kit with MicroPython Code and Tutorials

This is a great kit for kids and adults alike who want to learn a variety of engineering lesson. I am an engineer and teach at a makerspace, so I'm always on the look out for the cool kits on the market for students. By assembling from scratch you see what is NEEDED in terms of design, materials, parts, mechanics. This is very important stepping stone to start designing your own build to accomplish what you want build. I have previously ordered two other Adeept projects, the robot arm and an RC car, and this one is different - it can self driving using an ultrasonic sensor and has LEDs to do line following (it also includes RC control via IR remote control and via an App using ESP8266). These are hallmark skills for students to learn and for competitions. So this is a nice stepping stone that goes from manual control (RC car) to autonomous control (using the ultrasound distance sensor input to program responses). This is a good project to begin to understand how robot vacuum cleaners or lawnmovers work autonomously. The kit, as I have now come to expect from Adeept, is very well designed, well labeled and well packed (every pouch has a labeled sticker) with extra parts if needed (I didn't need it). The instructions have to be downloaded from their website and very easy to follow assembly instructions - which takes a couple hours (give yourself 4-5hrs if you're very new). So this is definitely a weekend project if you're are starting fresh, prepare to spend about 4hrs on Saturday assembling and playing around with programming (they provide a lot OF lesson plans) on Sunday. Obviously, these lesson should be done over several weekends. IMPORTANT: The kits does not ship batteries (you need two 3.7V Li-ion 3 18650 2000mAh) as part of the kit to minimize shipping and parts cost. You will have to buy the batteries and the charger kit (EBL Universal 18650 Battery Charger) separately - which may cost ~$30 USD on Amazon (in USA). I think Adeept should update this page to reflect that you need to buy these separately. Other than that I think this is good investment for ages 11 and up. And the best part about kits like these is that it will inspire better design ideas and allows easy modification. If you have 3D printer you can start exploring new designs immediately. I highly recommend this well designed kit - just remember batteries/charger not included, buy them separately and use in other projects.

The product does not work. The remote has to almost touch the car to go and it only goes backwards. By the time we got it together and programmed it was outside the return time frame so now we are stuck with it.