As a creator of AutoAuto I will try my best not to be bias here... 🤓

1. AutoAuto: Miniature Autonomous car made for classrooms, to inspire and empower kids about Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and STEM overall. Has a friendly way for kids to get started and currently 120+ hours of vide-based lessons that help kids self-pace as they go through projects.
Ask us about our use cases and several feedback from students and teachers on how much they loved learning/teaching with AutoAuto, so you can decide by yourself if it is a good fit for you. 😉

2. Cozmo: Great robot that was first intended for home users. Then Dr. Dave Touretzky created the Calypso software to bring Cozmo into classrooms, and ReadyAI has created many hours of content for enabling kids to learn AI with it. 

3. Donkey Car: Pretty awesome software behind the car, seems to be very interesting for makers and hobbyists but I am not sure it has a space in the classrooms yet. 

There are many other products out there more focused on Computer Science, but that could still get kids excited on doing more AI and Machine Learning next, like Lego Mindstorms and the Finch Robot.


Warmly,

Joyce 


Joyce Rigelo, PhD
AutoAuto, LLC
website: autoauto.ai


On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 10:01 PM Dave Touretzky <dst@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
>   Which programmable robot you'd recommend to inspire and excited K-12
>   kids about AI?

In my view, robots that lack computer vision cannot be used to teach
kids much about AI.  This rules out most of what's currently available
in the K-12 marketplace, including Dash and Dot, Sphero, LEGO, and Vex.
Note that a simple brightness detector does not qualify as "computer
vision": see the distinction between "sensing" and "perception" in the
Five Big Ideas.  Real computer vision means things like face detection
and object recognition.

So what robots qualify for teaching AI?  Here are three you can get today,
and three more that are coming.

Today:

1. Cozmo -- by far the best price/performance of anything on the market.
Suitable for ages 8 and up; can be programmed in Scratch, Python, or
Calypso.  And still available for purchase, even though Anki has gone
out of business.  Get them while you can; there won't be any more.
  https://anki.com/en-us/cozmo.html
  https://Calypso.software

2. Robomaster S1 from DJI.  Just released.  Robot tank with a built-in
camera on a pan/tilt mount.  Programmable in Python.
  https://www.dji.com/robomaster-s1

3. Autoauto.  Robot car with built-in vision, but very limited control
primitives.  Students are expected to figure out their own control laws.
Programmable in Python.
  https://www.autoauto.ai/


Coming soon:

4. Amazon DeepRacer: a vision-guided robotic race car.  Was promised
for July but now expected to ship sometime this fall.
  https://aws.amazon.com/deepracer/ 

5. Sphero RVR: a robot tank that you can bolt a vision module onto.  Supposedly
has really good odometry.  Due to ship in October.
  https://www.sphero.com/rvr

6. Zumi by RoboLink.  A tiny robot car with a Raspberry Pi 0 offering
some computer vision.  Crude control due to lack of odometry.  Was
launched as a Kickstarter; not shipping to new buyers yet.
  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robolink/driving-into-the-world-of-ai-zumi


-- Dave
To unsubscribe from this list please go to http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=g92lHWUwDhPVdPuVkTROCOgwSE86NZeH