SunFounder Robot Car Kit for Raspberry Pi Pico

The media could not be loaded. Fun project to explore robotics and python programming. The documentation can be found online as well.For my background, I have no background knowledge in robotics but thought this was a nice project to learn more. I appreciated how the documentation provided context. However, there were some steps that were not as straightforward, but I was able to figure it out in the end. Some parts that I have trouble with is getting the app Sunfounder Controller to work on my Android phone. I ended up reaching out to the company via email and after a few correspondences, was able to get it to work! I don't think this was to do with the product, but more from how I am new to all this. If there was a community, I think that would be even more helpful to be able to learn from others.When putting the model together, I also appreciated the documentation and how thorough it was. The pdf to assemble the car is provided with the kit but also found online.I am excited to work and expand on this project some more to learn more about robotics.

I like that it has everything (except batteries) included (even a screwdrive). Neat kit with a bunch of fun features that should make lots of small projects doable. My 10 year old was able to mostly assemble it by himself in about 4 hours.I ran all the test procedures and it seems like my grayscale sensor is broken (for line following and cliff detection - it always reads the same things regardless of surface color). While the instructions say test the sensors they don't say what to do if one isnt working nor do they seem to offer replacement parts for individual sensors.Also some things that seem like they would be obvious are not covered in the instructions (How do I make it run one of my scripts on startup?) I was able to get the phone app to connect to the car, and the act of programming a remote control interface is very cool.I wish there was a bit more of a community around these products, such that you could easily share code and debugging information with others.

Main issue was there was one pack of the screws missing so we are waiting on those for our done to finish it. He does love it though!

There are good things and bad things about this kit. On the plus side, the hardware is pretty good and assembly wasn't too bad. If you give this as a gift to a kid, having an experienced adult around to help will be extremely useful and probably essential. The installation instructions are basically a single two-sided sheet with pictures on it. The big problem is what to do with it once it's installed. There are no included instructions for this; you have to go online and read the documentation on the web. This documentation is, to put it mildly, horrible. Whoever wrote it is not an English speaker and it shows, and there isn't much there in the first place. The documentation can be followed if you know enough (e.g. if you're an experienced Python programmer and are willing to do supplemental reading on the Raspberry Pi Pico), but don't expect a good experience. There are only a few simple test programs to run on the Pico and then you are on your own. We mainly used the grayscale module, which according to the docs should output numbers up to about 40000-50000. Ours wouldn't go beyond 25000, but that was enough to make the car follow lines once we adjusted the threshold settings (which we had to work out for ourselves). Oh, and you are supposed to do the calibration _before_ putting the car together, even though it's far from obvious. We had to dismantle some of the car to do this since we'd already assembled everything, since the potentiometer that needed to be adjusted was inside the car instead of facing outwards. So there is a lot of room for improvement. The Raspberry Pi Pico and microPython are wonderful to work with, though, and we (my son and I) will definitely be building more projects with it, but we will be using kits from different companies.

Had several robot and electronics kits over the years. Most are either too simplistic or too complicated to figure, especially with kids, but I am impressed with this kit. Instructions are right on and the parts are machined and fabricated very well. This one has kept the interest up for my youngest. Thank you SunFounder. We will be looking for more.

Great kit with clear instructions and a good code repository to get you off and running. This is an excellent way to get familiar with the Pico microcontroller, the MicroPython framework, and robotics!

Great idea, but can't say much else positive about it. We couldn't get it working and have an unhappy birthday boy.The instructions are challenging. We had four adults that each took a crack at it, two of whom are software developers, and we could not get it running.It does not come with the batteries necessary to run. The accompanying website is scattered, it's not a simple 1-2-3 waterfall process (which would make this easier).We also got hung up on smaller issues along the way which prevented us from continuing along the major path forward. If we didn't get stuck, a part would break or something wouldn't function as it should have. Too many obstacles for something that should be bulletproof for a kids project.Star Rating:* Loses 1 star for price, I did not feel remotely close to value for what I got.* Loses 1 star for poor instructions. Most kids are not going to figure this out, and I'd venture a guess that most parents won't figure it out either.* Loses 1 star for not including batteries. Would be more easily forgivable if it used AA's, but since this uses a rare battery its worse.* Loses 1 star for pain and suffering. Both for the adults who spent hours trying to figure out how to get it working, and the birthday boy who was in tears because his car didn't work.

Seems liked

The quality check is not great, but the support is great. Was missing 1 RGB LED Strip and some motor wire backward. They ship us the missing part and corrected the driver for the motor. Great learning tools for my kids