STEM robots are wonderful for teaching kids technology and coding concepts. The GinoBot is a programmable expandable robot that can be used for 3rd party hardware like a Raspberry Pi or micro:bit for complex projects. It comes with wireless connectivity and has interactive instructions available on smartphones. The great folks at Engino Education were kind of enough to send us a sample unit for review.
The GinoBot ships with proximity, color, ultrasonic sensor and DC motors. Everything is neatly packaged and an illustrated guide is included that shows you how to build different models step by step. The robot took us about 30 minutes to build. No soldering or tool was necessary.
The GinoBot comes with a couple of apps for control and programming. Ginobot Robot RC has a pretty simple interface and lets you remote control the robot, change the color of its lights and even play music. KEIRO is for more serious programming. It comes with a bunch of blocks for sensors, movements, functions, and loops. You can create complex programs such as “maze escape.” You can test the sensors in the simulator and view the code as you make changes to your program.
KEIRO comes with a file management system that lets you save programs for future use. Connecting the robot and uploading programs was pretty straightforward for us. You will want to have the battery fully charged if you want to spend serious time making changes to your program and testing it.
Overall, the GinoBot is a neat programmable robot ready for simple and complex programming. Your kids can start with the drag & drop interface and learn about conditional statements, loops and functions as they play.
