My Great Little Bot

What a fantastic jump into the world of programming robots. Within hours you can start creating your own robot personality. My 9 year old loves the stem programming app that allows her to understand the logic that drives clicbot. On our third time playing with clicbot she figured out how to record her voice so that clicbot would respond with when a few other sensors were triggered. It is fun, entertaining, and educational on a level that is hard to find. Easily the best gift she received.

Fun to build. Little bit confusng to build your own. The prebuilt robots are easy to build and fun to learn.

An awesome STEM learning/teaching product with so many possibilities. Introduces children to coding at a beginners stage and gradually moves into more advanced stages. A truly excellent product for all ages. My girls love it and it finally allows me as a father to interact with them with a toy other than barbies. Lol. Do not be intimidated, it is very easy to learn. Best STEM product out on the market today.

I almost never write reviews, but this is an exception.I bought the Maker kit (as a late Christmas gift to myself) because I wanted to have as much flexibility to explore the product as possible. I've long been interested in robotics and I was intrigued by the wide number of components and the almost limitless ways in which they can be combined.I built the default "Bac" unit first, and was entertained by it's antics, games and behavior. I recognize this is a "scripted" execution, but it nevertheless exposes you to the potential that exists within the system,I'm slowly beginning to explore the user community and gather information on creating my own designs using the Blockly programming feature. I look forward to the upcoming Python/API features but understand that it may take some time to deliver against that.In summary, for me it is the sheer potential and flexibility that drew me in. I recognize that the product is early in its lifecycle, but the developers seem committed, engaged and enthusiastic in taking this to a positive outcome and I want to be along for the ride.

Overall I am very satisfied with ClicBot. My kids have probably spend 20 hours each in a week with ClicBot. I۪m hoping this review helps people decide if it۪s the right fit for them and also hoping ClicBot will read it and take some recommendations.My kids, 10 year old boy and 11 year old girl, really like having a toy where they can be creative and build something themselves. ClicBot definitely feeds that craving. The company built an app for ClicBot that also comes with a community. My kids really enjoy this part because they can upload creations and have competitions with the community and win prizes for the best submissions.If you want something that works perfect and gives you step by step instructions on what to build then it might not be for you. It comes with a hefty price tag to join the ClicBot club and I could see why some people will say it۪s not worth it. I think it is!ClicBot could improve the product by having some simple guided do it yourself projects which should not only include the build but also instruction showing a guided programming experience. This would likely help people with less experience.My kids and I did not have a problem diving in and figuring things out but it seems a lot of people want some additional guided help.They do have ClicBot academy videos to get you started. These videos are pretty cool, the guys keep things basic to help kids understand and have a lot of humor to keep interest.Unfortunately we do have some technical issues. Sometimes ClicBot will disconnect and then you have to reboot the app, the brain unit, or try a direct connection which can be frustrating.I think some refinement to the app could also help a lot. The app itself is great but I notice the videos don۪t load very well no matter if it۪s from the community or the academy. It۪s likely a server issue and where they are hosted.ClicBot should also definitely consider making a connection possible by a computer. Currently you can only connect via smartphone or tablet. We do not have tablets at my house so trying to do block coding or other programming on my phone can be a pain.One more path to a great success would be integrating the programming and control mode into one experience. The pre made ClicBot designs do this but we can۪t create one ourself yet. When you create a build yourself you can choose to program to do lots of cool things or you can control ClicBot yourself with motions you create. The pre done build by ClicBot are really cool because they incorporate both together!Okay okay_.this was more of a brain dump. I hope it helps someone out there. Bottom line is this is a really cool project that is very fun for the whole family. If you have realistic expectations then you won۪t be disappointed. With something like ClicBot stretching the boundaries of what we can do at home I think this is a definite win!