- [Mr. Mobile] If you've ever played with
or even seen a Sphero, you don't need me to tell you
that remote controlled robots are a lot of fun.
But a few days with these bots showed me
a whole new side of the experience
I didn't even know I was missing,
the experience of building and programming them myself.
I'm Mr. Mobile, and these are my two new robot friends.
Half the fun of Kamigami is building them.
The robots come flat packed in thin boxes,
their skeletons pre-punched in flexible matte plastic.
And you don't even need any tools to put them together,
just the little baggie of fasteners
that you lock in by hand.
Following the directions on the website,
I managed to fold, rivet, and power up Goki here
in just over a half hour.
The box says that an eight-year-old can build one of these,
and I believe it.
Once assembled, the bots are just a button press
and a bluetooth bond away from life.
You download the companion app
to your Android or iPhone,
the bot pops up on the screen,
and one grumpy old man reference later, you're connected.
That's when the real fun kicks off.
What I really love about these things
is that there are no hidden wheels or gimmicks.
They move like real insects on those legs,
up to five feet per second.
The app let's you control direction and speed,
and gives you real-time readouts of motor activity,
rotation, and battery life.
And if you want, you can drill down deeper too,
for things like yaw, pitch, and roll rate,
ambient light, and IR, and so on.
You can see all that data because Kamigami
isn't just a remote-control bug.
It's meant to help you or your child
learn basic programming.
So you have access to a hold slew of
if this, then that commands.
If the robot flips upside down, for example,
then you can make it change its eye color,
or run its motors a certain way.
If it detects an IR signal from another bot,
then it can react by running, spinning,
sending its own signal, or anything in between.
But together, all these if, then commands mean
the bots can play games with each other.
Freeze Tag, which temporarily disables your controls
if the other bot hits you,
Afraid of the Dark, which makes them go a little crazy
when the lights go out,
and Sumo, in which you get points by
pushing another bot off a table.
First of three points wins.
(censored)
(laughing)
Most of this works very well.
The bots are durable.
Each of mine survived many drops
from a three foot high table onto linoleum,
and when the batteries finally ran dry,
they recharged very quickly through
the provided micro USB cable.
I found driving these things much more fun
than a typical RC car,
thanks in no small part to how much personality they have.
The only thing that didn't always work as advertised
was Afraid of the Dark.
The bots didn't always recognize when the lights went out.
Another thing you need to know,
if you want to program your own game,
for now, you need an iPhone or iPad.
The Android app is still in beta,
and while it works perfectly for driving
and running the prepackaged games,
you can't yet build your own commands within it.
The company says it's working on including that feature.
So, for just a shade under a hundo,
are the Kamigami worth it?
Oh yeah, I think so.
Now, is Sphero's BB8 droid cuter?
Totally.
And you can tweak Sphero's software too
if you or your child want a deeper understanding
of how simple code works.
But there's just something about
putting one of these together with your own hands
that makes it that much more satisfying
when you get it up and running.
If it sparks an interest in STEM
in you or your youngling, great.
But even if it doesn't, it's still an awful lot of fun.
(laughing)
See the link in the description
for where to buy, and keep checking that description
and the comments for special offers on these bots,
just for Mr. Mobile subscribers.
Joining that subscriber club
is as simple as hitting the button, folks.
You can do that on YouTube,
where new Mr. Mobile videos land at least twice a week.
'Till next time thanks for watching,
and stay mobile, my friends.