If you’re looking for a new way to control robots, this modular platform is a good tool to learn the fundamentals of hand gesture controlled robots.
It is called Ziro and is engineered to put your creativity outside of the box. But like many other kits for kids, this platform comes with good and bad things. Well, probably I exaggerate with these bad things, but we will see.
Let’s get started with what is good at this kit.
First of all, I like the way they build the platform. It’s modular and gives you the freedom to choose the materials to build robots. Your robot will be loved by the Greenpeace since you can use eco-friendly and non-plastic materials such as cardboard boxes.
If you don’t like to use the cardboard boxes to animate your creations, you can choose to build different robots using the materials included in the kit.
Another feature makes me thing at the LEGO Mindstorms series. The individual mechanized motor modules. These modules can be assembled in various ways for a wide range of robot types and models. You can build 2WD robots, 4WD robots, and more.
All of these robots have something more in common than the mechanized motor modules. It’s about the smart wireless glove. This is the brain of the robot. The way we communicate with it and make it move with a hand gesture.
A smartphone application lets you connect your robot to the smart glove and configure the modules. The modules could be configured in two modes: the first mode, use programming templates; the second mode is your custom input from the smart glove.
The smart glove features sensors that understand your hand and finger gestures, and once with the first movement, it sends commands to the robot. Even if it seems something magical, there is nothing more than science.
Now comes the less liked part. In general, I like the modular platforms. They could be customized and lets the users build their different things with the same pieces. But at the same time, I like well-done things. I don’t have a kit for a review, but in the video shown above, this platform looks unfinished. It looks cheap (the price is not revealed, pre-order the kit here) and apparently stand to disassemble at every move. Probably I’m wrong.
Otherwise, Ziro seems an addorable platform to build fun things and toys. Just as they said: “The possibilities are endless.”