HIWONDERJetHexa Hexapod Robot Kit for Jetson Nano 3D Depth Camera, G4 Lidar and Lidar Mapping Navigation ROS AI Robot Kit (Advanced Kit)

This hexapod robot is a hit not only with me but also with my dog, who absolutely loves playing with it. Its ease of operation, thanks to the included remote control, makes it accessible and enjoyable, extending its appeal beyond just tech-savvy users. This aspect adds an interactive and fun element to its variety of features. The robot stands out for its responsive controls, solid build, and array of features. The initial booting issue was quickly resolved by reseating the SD card, representing a minor hiccup in an otherwise stellar performance. Its durable construction and responsive nature are particularly noteworthy, ensuring a dependable user experience. I'm eager to delve deeper, especially into its LIDAR capabilities.

The JetHexa is great quality and very well documented. I am doing voice interaction research and the JetHexa is speeding the integration with other software packages. Great product and super recommended!

I have purchased and am using several different robots to learn AI. 2 from HiWonder including this one.1st a few disadvantages to this kit. It has no arm so you won't be able to manipulate objects unless to just kick them. 2nd, it comes with a choice of only a standard web cam or a deep scan camera. Since it does not have both at once, you will have some limitations because of the one you didn't choose to have. (I recommend you get the better deep scan one.)This is not a robot for a young child. This robot is for an adult or older teen for several reasons. While it is green anodized metal, it can be bent and both mechanically and electrically permanently damaged if dropped or mishandled or not charged properly. A responsible teen or adult will likely enjoy it's complexity and programmable abilities, but a younger child will not. It's not a toy.You will likely enjoy walking this robot around. There's something immediately impressive about a 6 legged robot crawling around. But its unlikely your love for moving it around will translate to learning robotics or AI deep learning without some effort on your part.To utilize this robot's AI capabilities you will need to use Linux, Python, ROS1 and possibly even C++. There are demonstration programs that can show you what this robot can do. But the tutorials and sample codes themselves are nearly useless for actually using this robot for AI. You will need to learn to program and become familiar with the above listed languages. This is not an autonomous robot without you writing code to make it so. This robot comes with some great hardware to make learning AI and using this robot both fun and educational. But don't expect to get that education from just HI Wonder's tutorials alone. They are sometimes hard to follow and the English is not very well spoken. The information is there if you have the time to learn to code.You'll find most of your answers and apps on web sites like Nvidia's Jetson site and Hiwonder's site.Most of this robot is assembled before you get it, but be prepared to add a few included parts. The instructions are sometimes hard to follow but be sure you do follow them. Power can be physically plugged into wrong places on the boards and damage the robot or charger if you don't follow those instructions carefully.The LED display on the front is so tiny that it's there more as a decoration than to be informative or readable.The 6 legs on this robot each have 3 motors (degrees of freedom). That means you've got 18 motors running the legs and walking. The methods of moving those 18 motors in proper succession is by reverse kinematics programming which you will need to learn and basically understand. There are a few different gaits (methods of walking) this robot can do to walk. Also it can raise or lower it's ground clearance at the expense of smooth or fast walking.This robot is essentially a Linux computer using Linux, Python, ROS1 and C++ programs. You will need to have a fairly good understanding of Linux when you start programming and learn Python and the others as you go. You will be mostly programming from a command line so knowing Linux and it's syntax is very necessary. There are what they call games (cell phone apps) you can call up to demonstrate what it can do. There are also cell phone apps to move the motors and do some very basic programming. Usually this connection is between either your cell phone or the included game controller (they call it a handle) and via wifi and Bluetooth. But there is an ethernet port on board. You could also hook up a wireless mouse or keyboard and a monitor to the robot or use it from your own PC. Of course, you would have to provide those peripherals as they don't come with the robot. If you control the robot from the included game controller (handle) you can walk it around but won't have access to much else than manual driving capabilities.Because this robot uses a Jetson Nano computer, it has many AI capabilities that you can program into it. The Jetson Nano is more powerful than Pis or Arduinos for AI but the Jetson Nano is the lowest powerful Jetson made. If you get good at programing and enjoy working with AI, you might later decide to replace this controller with a more powerful Jetson Orin model. While the better NVidia Jetson controllers are not cheap by any means, they offer greater abilities to learn and use AI with.You can also add on other devices and further expand the capabilities of this robot. As it comes, you have a limited source of free USB ports or servo plugins so you might need to increase those capabilities 1st with USB hubs or motor controllers if you plan on adding your own sensors or motors. The possibilities are nearly endless but I would highly advise you to first learn to use what you've got before planning new upgrades. The more you learn about AI programming and hardware, the more you will likely want to expand. To learn what you want, may require months of programming and coding and internet research and even hardware parts purchases. It depends on how deep into AI robotics you want to go. You can do a lot with this kit if you are willing to dedicate time to learning.But one of the coolest things about this hexapod robot is that if you become bored or just decide not to continue with robot AI learning, you can always just walk it around via phone or handle to show off it's insect like actions and through their apps, demonstrate some of its AI capabilities.I do recommend this robot for anyone wanting to have a robot capable of demonstrating AI and for it's ability to be expanded by the DIYer.