DJI Robomaster S1: robot kids can teach to follow parents at home

The DJI Robomaster S1 is a robot kids can teach to sing, interact and even follow mum and dad around the home

DJI Robomaster.

Fancy a manoeuvrable robot on wheels that darts back and forth at speed, thrusts sideways, fires lasers and gel pellets, and is programmable in two languages? Then you may find appealing the DJI Robomaster S1, designed for children and teenagers.

This smart educational robot isn’t your everyday toy. It’s been created by the world’s leading consumer drone maker, DJI, and inherits some of the features found on its drones. As with many DJI drones, you download an app and use it to configure and operate the robot, using your phone or tablet to watch what it sees through its high-resolution camera mounted at top front.

You use the left virtual joystick in the app to thrust the robot forwards and backwards, left and right, as you would a drone. The joystick on the right side lets you rotate the camera to alter the field of view. The camera is mounted on a gimbal. The robot’s ability to slide sideways and thrust forward and reverse at full speed is made possible by its omnidirectional mecanum wheels. It has an intelligent controller that DJI says can simultaneously support low-latency high-definition image transmission, AI (artificial intelligence) computing, and programming development.

You can program the S1 using Scratch 3.0, a visual programming language widely used in primary and secondary schools. More advanced children can also program it in the Python language, and explore functionality such as handling T-junctions and intersecting roads. You can teach the robot to follow markers on the floor and children can train the S1 to follow people and pets around at home.

The S1 has three sensors to detect nearby objects and three operational modes: solo, battle mode for fighting and racing other S1s and lab mode for teaching it custom skills.

DJI says it has 46 customisable components, and it harnesses AI technology to recognise gestures, sounds and even other S1 robots. You can even teach it songs.