Thames and Kosmos Robotics: Smart Machines - HoverBots

Build and program amazing robots that balance on two wheels! Discover the world of robotics — an exciting, interdisciplinary field combining physics, engineering, and computer science. This kit gives kids a simple, fun, and customizable introduction to robotics. You can build eight motorized robots that use a special self-balancing technology to move around. Code programs for your robots using an easy, visual programming app on a tablet or smartphone, which connects to the robots via a wireless Bluetooth connection. The robots use a combination of sensors to balance themselves. A gyroscope sensor is used to detect the angle of tilt of the vehicle. An accelerometer is a sensor that detects the acceleration, or change in speed, of the vehicle. Together, these two sensors can tell the microcontroller — the robot’s “brain” — if the vehicle is tilting too far forward or backward and moving too fast forward or backward to remain balanced. Then, sensors attached to the motors, called encoder