Robotis Bioloid Robot Kit: Gives you the option to build whatever you want

The Bioloid robotics kits from Korean company Robotis are commonly described as 'Edutainment' robots, and certainly have much more educational potential than the other kit robots that are more designed for competition like the KHR-1, KHR-2HV & 1HV, Robonova-1 & Manoi robots.

The comprehensive kit comes with 18 servo motors, a CM-5 controller, sensor module and over 100 plastic frames which make the basis for creating 12 different example robots including the popular humanoid, a quadruped puppy robot, dinosaur robots, autonomous exploratory robots, six-legged insect robots. Or build whatever you can come up with, the frames & brackets are easily fitted together in various ways, allowing you to build a robot which attempts to emulate any living creature.

You get a fantastic sensor module with the Bioloid kit that acts as the head on the humanoid, the sensor has a number of different functions including distance sensing, sound detection, proximity sensor, light sensor and more. This gives the robots that you make with the kit extra intelligence, it is fairly straightforward to build robots that do not bump into things, do not fall off edges, can mimick the number of hand claps, can sense when something is close and attack it, can wake up or sleep when signalled with a clap or a tap on the table, amazing potential for creating your own artificial intelligence.

It is all controlled by a CM-5 control module that all the servos are connected to, and also hosts the computer serial interface. This controller is very powerful in the variety of applications it can be used for, when you tire of the example robots, you can explore the CM-5 controller and the two included freeware software applications to program your bot to do almost anything, and function very well autonomously when pre-programmed to utilise the sensor module.

The Bioloid humanoid is eligable for some of the Robo-One J-Class events, along with the KHR and Robonova-1 robots it often competes in demonstration & soccer events. The Bioloid servos, sensors & controller modules can easily be put together with some customised metal brackets to make a stronger robot for competition, rather than the basic plastic frame.

A Bioloid Expert kit is offered for those wanting a C development environment for programming, wireless communication and image processing, and costs a staggering £1,800. The Expert kit includes 21 servos, 2 controllers and 3 sensor modules, so you can build a number of robots at once, or build one really clever robot with multiple sensors and up to 21 Degrees of Freedom (DOF). There is also a Beginner kit which includes 4 servo motors, a CM-5 controller and a sensor module.

All the Bioloid kits would be a great introduction to robotics, the whole package from the parts to the software seem very user friendly, easy to build the robots and understand what is going on.

The only problem is deciding between this and Robonova-1 for a first kit robot.

Links:
Robotis Bioloid Website
RoboSavvy Bioloid Forum
RoboSavvy Bioloid Information

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