Overview of the competition series itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyYsCyMC-0w
Video of the 2018 Finals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNQfaf_Cr0
Bloomberg video about the RoboMaster S1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPzq1DoPnXs
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.
Meanwhile this isn't a terrible price for what amounts to a programmable ground drone and even is just a fun looking toy
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.
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.com/assets/uploads/v/1b34c0e069531a08639...
This would have been great without the cannon, with the cannon it feels... off.
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.
But they are not educational. Educational + has a cannon. There is some cognitive dissonance right there. My opinion.
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 just about any toy for boys sold in the US throughout the 80s, or so it feels like. I'm also quite sure LEGO has sold sets with motors and plans to build catapult contraptions. Nothing about this is "super icky from a Western perspective".
I am deeply concerned about many things going on within China (e.g. Xinjiang), but this willful othering and breakdown of empathy has to stop. The bottom line here is that some people think it's fun and/or will sell well to have a toy that shoots things. You can absolutely criticize that, but it's a culturally universal phenomenon and doesn't need to divide us along borders.
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.
I don't get this finger pointing, can we please solve real gun violence in our midsts before going for educational resources?
You are explicitly trying to put it out of context and I don't understand why.
Thats tracking and object and not "hunting". Even the hover link which makes that video visible mentions this:
> People Recognition
> Thanks to advanced computer vision technology, the S1 is able to identify and track any individual you select in the S1’s FOV.
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.
I know I could vpn it but I don't think that should be necessary.
(robocode seems to still be going, though I haven't looked at it in a while..)
- Start with a DonkeyCar with Jetson Nano
- add mecanum wheels (why not three instead of four?)
- add a weapon or laser pointer or whatever
On the other hand, do we really want to push gamification of autonomous weapon systems?
Interested in installing a webserver like flask on here.
> To comply with local laws and regulations, the RoboMaster S1 will not be sold in Washington, D.C. or North Dakota.
My daughter was turned off from robotics at a young age. She joined firstego league and there was a ton of domineering "boy energy" in her school. She enjoyed creating and personalizing the robots in unique ways, the boys wanted "to win".
This is what happens when you have a bunch of dudes designing educational robot toys.
If we accept your premise to be true, then we must cater to the girls so robotics can be more inclusive. Again your words: "creating and personalizing the robots in unique ways". Maybe DJI can provide robotics which is less violent, catered for girls. I don't know, maybe something like Baymax, or Wall-E.
The other side of coin is we reject your premise. Boys and girls have no differences. Boys want to win. Girls want to win also. If this alternative premise is true, then either we must push the girls to be more aggressive (want to win) or discourage the boys who are aggressive (want to win).
I am interested in other people's opinion about this. No, I don't have answer for this question.
So according to you, the situation of boys like "more military and violent" type robotic toys and girls like "more creative" type robotics toys, could be caused by social construct (role modeling and social pressure).
In that case, what should we do as society? Should we let this social construct be because it is harmless? Should we uproot this social construct as society because this construct is harmful for children?
The second question is what do you mean by "let people be people" in the parent's context? Should DJI produce another kind of robotics toys (which is less violent)? Or if a kid who happens to be a girl and does not like "violent" robotics toys should accept the situation and just find another toy? Or she should learn to love "violent" robotics toys?
Because it most often is, boys typically like to compete more than girls do. I'm not going to quote studies on this, just basing this on my experience growing up and now as an adult being around small kids.
Unless you’re making the case that absent cultural conditioning, women are biologically less interested in “winning” than men?
Because the same processes that make male and female bodies have different structure and work differently make male and female brains have different structure and work differently.
That was 7 years ago, now she is in an all girls high school. The same sex education has provided a much less distracting environment. (Don't want to get off topic but I could go on and on about same sex education)
From your own words, it sounds like your daughter enjoys being aesthetically creative rather than technically competitive. In which case, why are you bitter about a drone company being a drone company?
I was just sharing some female perspectives. If this wasn't so expensive, I'd buy 2 for myself.
As a parent, I don't think there's a need to teach the next generation ok kids about AI in the context of autonomous killing machines...
I have a son and a daughter, and I don't like that approach for either of them. I think if boys or girls are having fun, that should be encouraged and used as a motivator. If "killing machines" is what motivates the boys to program robots, so be it. Although I don't think this toy robot can actually kill anything, so that is just hyperbole.
And presumably it goes further - will I be blamed if I give my son a water pistol, because I encourage his toxic masculinity? Where does it stop?
This almost looks like it's satire, but it's completely real and for sale, just $499!
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM
Although it is hard, I try to avoid fighting games and media for my kids as much as I can and try to teach them competing in more creative ways...
Do you also forbid water blasters in the hot summer?
As you say, those playful fights are a natural impulse. It is also not true that you can solve every problem without violence.
I'm expecting people to chime up with "what about the girls?", though. Presumably those battle bots might be considered off putting to girls, putting them to a severe disadvantage because they miss out on their STEM education. (An argument I would also consider bullshit, but those are the times).
Btw Rudolf Steiner (of Waldorf School fame) would also outlaw ball games, at least soccer. After all, the ball could be mistaken for a head and it could train kids to kick heads.
here it is fighting... This particular robot though is hard to repurpose (e.g. put additional sensors on top, e.g. to measure things or additional actors to move things or have other meaningful impact)
commercially it makes sense, like a facebook bubble does, educationally it is limited
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GpdoJXpo2U
You can use "macros" in the fight. Regardless, this robot is a vision-enabled robot after all. You can use it as a ordinary AI robot anyway. I think the price still make sense as there are few consumer programmable robots with mecanum wheels.
