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DJI RoboMaster S1

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Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#11

Post by lnsru »

hurrdurr2 wrote: post #4

Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting. They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is what they came up with.

I can imagine, that some primitive gripper is many times more expensive than this offensive component. With a gripper robot must be also bigger and wider as well as more expensive.

As I can see in my home country (ex Soviet Union), parents have no problems when little kids play with guns, tanks or planes. Germans, for example, avoid this. I have mixed feelings, I love peace, but the guns also exist in this world.

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#12

Post by tastroder »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #7
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #4

Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting. They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is what they came up with.

The fact that DJI releases an educational robot for kids that has a working cannon feels super icky from my western perspective. In China do they think it's a great idea? Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason? Also, how long until someone recreates the famous square scene with a lego character and 3 of these? EDIT: This video from the promo page where it is hunting down a child - https://www1.djicdn…

Also from a Western perspective: this looks like a toy, they even include the orange tip. In context, and contrary to that western battle bots TV show, it seems to pretty much focus on education and competition. A goal which they seem to achieve or it wouldn't be viable to put commercial resources into it.

I don't get this finger pointing, can we please solve real gun violence in our midsts before going for educational resources?

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#13

Post by __m »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #7
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #4

Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting. They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is what they came up with.

The fact that DJI releases an educational robot for kids that has a working cannon feels super icky from my western perspective. In China do they think it's a great idea? Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason? Also, how long until someone recreates the famous square scene with a lego character and 3 of these? EDIT: This video from the promo page where it is hunting down a child - https://www1.djicdn…

Just preparing them to go to the MIT. Toying with guns is very much in line with western culture, not even mentioning video games. The ability to program the toy just makes it more attractive to nerds.

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#14

Post by jamestimmins »

hurrdurr2 wrote: post #4

Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting. They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is what they came up with.

It's perhaps notable that Anki went out of business.

Given the popularity of games like Fortnite, the shooting dynamic seems somewhat inevitable. They may as well shoot at other toy robots and learn to program in the process.

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#15

Post by Lazare »

hurrdurr2 wrote: post #4

Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting. They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is what they came up with.

I can only conclude they've actually met a child, unlike the Anki designers then. :)

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#16

Post by throwaway66666 »

sho_hn wrote: post #10
throwaway66666 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that DJI releases an educational robot for kids that has a working cannon feels super icky from my western perspective. In China do they think it's a great idea? Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason? Also, how long until someone recreates the famous square scene with a lego character and 3 of these? EDIT: This video from the promo page where it is hunting down a child - https://www1.djicdn…

IMHO this comment qualifies as one of those "bizarre anti-Chinese sentiment" ones. The #2 consumer drone maker in the world after DJI, Parrot from France, also sells an educational drone for kids with a cannon (it's an add-on but gets sold together in a popular set), and has done so for years: The Parrot Mambo. There's countless other toys for children that include weaponry and/or glamorize it for that matter, like j…

Zero anti-chinese sentiment from my part.

I was wondering if the culture there makes it more acceptable. I understand it is a poor question to ask, as it immediately sets the tone that China is doing something wrong. Perhaps I should have worded it better.

Bare with me for a second though. I grew up watching western spaghetti films, playing with bb guns and thinking of cowboys as heroes. I was born and raised in Europe, not in the US (just to see how much things changed in a few decades). And I would not want my kids to grow up like that. Back then, that was normal. Today, luckily is not.

In the past, having robots that fight each other was cool, because it was in the realm of fantasy. Now that drones and unmanned vehicles are a reality, and the next step is to make them AI and metadata fully powered. Having robots fight each other begins to feel poor in taste, because the jump from toy to war machine becomes blurry.

I was just wondering what the general sentiment and how the culture in China is in regards to the above. Zero anti-sentiment, except honest questions.

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#18

Post by xchaotic »

My kids went through Sphero, Mindstorms and a couple of other robots where you can program them in Scratch and similar. To me such a toy would have been a godsend. They got bored pretty quickly.

Another issue is that gimbal adds to video quality but also to cost.

Finally with the hype, I was expecting a nice ready to fly FPV drone.

So I'm a bit meh about this toy.

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#19

Post by Lazare »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #7
hurrdurr2 wrote: post #4

Making the offensive component a central design element is... interesting. They could have designed a robot for kids like what anki did but.. this is what they came up with.

The fact that DJI releases an educational robot for kids that has a working cannon feels super icky from my western perspective. In China do they think it's a great idea? Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason? Also, how long until someone recreates the famous square scene with a lego character and 3 of these? EDIT: This video from the promo page where it is hunting down a child - https://www1.djicdn…

> The fact that DJI releases a [toy] for kids that has a working cannon feels super icky from my western perspective.

I don't think that's a western perspective, I think that's your perspective. The actual western perspective likes robots, toys, toy weapons, robotic toys, and robotic toy weapons, and all the various combinations thereof. Nerf and Transformers have been cultural staples for decades.

This isn't even the first commercial toy robot with a toy gun on it: https://www.amazon.com/Nerf-Creatures-TerraDrone-Discontinue...

Or the second: https://www.amazon.com/TerraScout-Nerf-N-Strike-Official-Rec...

Or the third: https://www.amazon.com/Unknown-782-USB-Missile-Launcher/dp/B...

Or the hundredth: https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Imports-Control-Military-Airs...

I guess you could argue the programmable nature of this somehow sets it apart, but I don't see how.

> Is the culture gap that big, or is there another reason?

I don't think the culture gap is where you imagine.

Re: DJI RoboMaster S1

#20

Post by sho_hn »

throwaway66666 wrote: post #16
sho_hn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO this comment qualifies as one of those "bizarre anti-Chinese sentiment" ones. The #2 consumer drone maker in the world after DJI, Parrot from France, also sells an educational drone for kids with a cannon (it's an add-on but gets sold together in a popular set), and has done so for years: The Parrot Mambo. There's countless other toys for children that include weaponry and/or glamorize it for that matter, like j…

Zero anti-chinese sentiment from my part. I was wondering if the culture there makes it more acceptable. I understand it is a poor question to ask, as it immediately sets the tone that China is doing something wrong. Perhaps I should have worded it better. Bare with me for a second though. I grew up watching western spaghetti films, playing with bb guns and thinking of cowboys as heroes. I was born and raised in Euro…

You wrote a rather leading "do they think it's a great idea?" (not a neutral way to ask this) and you said this would then constitute a large culture gap. If it's not sentiment, it's at the very least irrelevant - if the implied assumption holds that Western culture broadly considers this not a great idea (and I have my doubts on that one), then clearly it's not a requirement for the thing existing as the West does make and sell equivalent toys.
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