FREENOVE Robot Dog Kit for Raspberry Pi 5 4 B 3 B+ Zero 2 W, Walking, Self Balancing, Face Recognition, Ball Tracing, Ultrasonic Ranging, App Control, Camera, Servo (Raspberry Pi NOT Included)

I am a seasoned roboticist with extended experience in building robots from commercial kits as well as my creations.Searching for an inexpensive micro controller for my students, I stumbled on a cute and inexpensive robot called Micro Rover by Freenove, based on the ubiquitous BBC MicroBit card.I then realized that this company offered other, more sophisticated robots based on Arduino and Raspberry Pi at a very competitive price.I tried a few and the last I built is the Robot Dog for which I’m writing this review.This Kit is one of the best I have ever built.It consist of no less than thirteen servos, a Pi Camera, an ultrasonic sensor, some RGB LEDs, sturdy laser cut body parts, all the necessary cables, connectors and accessories plus a well-designed PCB that connects everything together.As a bonus, Freenove provides an outstanding instruction booklet in PDF format (122 page with clear pictures, codes and data tables).This kit may be a little daunting for rank beginners, but it is so well designed, built and documented that I would unconditionally recommend it for anybody interested in learning how modern autonomous robots are built, programmed and controlled.It runs on two easy to find 18650 3.7V batteries and it needs a Raspberry Pi as a controlling SBC (Single Board Computer).This is not a frustrating kit with missing parts, incomprehensible instructions and inexistent customer support.Even in the remote case of you getting stuck, Freenove offers excellent personalized online help.Roberto Pensotti

The idea that you can get a kit to make a walking robot from a Raspberry Pi was too much for me to pass up. I had several unused Pi boards laying around, so this seemed like a fun project. First of all, I'm a Systems Engineer by profession. I deal with electronics, electrical, thermal, mechanical, and software engineering on a daily basis. I would not recommend this kit to anyone that is not comfortable with mechanics, electronics, computers, programming, and the Linux operating system. That being said, this was one of the most frustrating builds I've done in a long time. You'll operations where you'll need magnification, 4 hands, and tiny fingers.First of all, you need batteries - 18650 cells to be exact, and you are not going to find these on your local grocery store or hardware store shelves. Luckily, I had a few USB rechargeable flashlights that I could borrow these from.About 30% of the documentation is how to setup the Pi. Basically just make sure that you have it setup with stock Raspberry Pi OS, it connects to WiFi, and you can VNC or SSH into the Pi. You have to enable I2C, Camera, and a few other things and clone their python code from a GitHub repository.In the box is a surprising number of servos, packets of screws/nuts, circuit board, cables, and components. The plastic pieces are punched out of some kind of CNC cut plastic sheet material. They are taped into the sheets to keep them from coming out. Be careful here. It does come out easily if pressed straight out, but the material is quite brittle and I did snap some corners of parts removing them - but nothing that would impact function. There are some spares of critical components which is a nice bonus.The build was quite interesting overall. Not how I would have engineered this kit. Very tedious, small, and next-to-impossible operations. You have to randomly (Yes, the instructions tell you to do it randomly) connect the servos, run a program on the pi to index the servos, and then assemble the legs while the pi is running and power is connected. You have wires going everywhere and it is a bit of a sh*t show.The instructions are vague in areas, and then there are some sentences that are somewhat confusing due to the translation. Once you get the kit built, and all the servos correctly attached, it does have a somewhat fun and satisfying validation check of all the components.After you have everything working, you then need to calibrate it. It comes with a paper sheet and extra calibration legs that you attach to the robot. You align the calibration legs to their places on the sheet, connect to the robot, and then fine tune each leg to the correct spot on the sheet using X, Y, Z adjustments in the calibration software. Once the calibration settings are done the robot is ready to walk.It does not walk very fast or very far. The battery life is not great... maybe 7-8 minutes from a full charge if you are walking around a lot. The client software on Windows is very unstable and crashes often. The robot occasionally gets "tired" and won't let you walk for a while, assuming while it "rests" - mind you, this can be after walking only a few inches. It only walks well on smooth surfaces, and easily gets stuck on the edge of a very low/thin carpet. The camera is OK and does the job, the sonic range finder is somewhat inaccurate while walking around. The facial recognition, an impressive feature, is glitchy like the rest of the software. I had it try to recognize a person, but it was more interested in recognizing the door behind the person. Maybe this could be used for the robot to recognize it's location in a house by recognizing objects?I had plans of making this into a smart roving robot that could navigate my house, take pictures of things, walk up and down stairs, recharge itself wirelessly, etc. Sadly, this robot, as it is designed currently, is not capable of these tasks. It is a fun toy to go put out by the cats and watch them stare at it as it clumsily shuffles around an inch at a time for 7-8 minutes while constantly restarting the client app after it crashes. Then, back to the charger for hours, until the next session.I am using a Raspberry Pi 4, which does have the highest power consumption of all the Pi devices. I tried using the Pi Zero W which is supposed to work. However, the camera ribbon cable appeared to be incompatible with the one supplied. I am curious to see if using a lower power Pi would extend the battery life.This kit took me about 8 hours to build, and I think it was worth it for the price. It was frustrating at times, but does look really cool when powered up and standing, and it is oddly satisfying to be using VNC or SSH on a "robot".

I have been looking to build this Robot Dog Kit since I first heard that it was going to be available. For the price, it is as sophisticated as robots costing more than twice as much (even after including the cost of a Raspberry Pi board and two 18650 batteries which are NOT included in the kit). It has video facial recognition, can follow a red ball and can be controlled by a smart phone APP.I have built other Freenove robot kits and it is no surprise that there are excellent help resources available if you need it. There is even a business card with an email address for customer support which is very responsive and helpful if you should need assistance.The kit just arrive and it has quality parts that are packed very well, metal geared servos, a proprietary Raspberry Pi adapter board with a built-in battery holder, a calibration positioning diagram, a manual and operating software which is provided online via a link.Yes, you must use your own Raspberry Pi board (most models are supported) and purchase two 18650 Li-ion batteries (the type required are specified in the documentation About_Battery.pdf which provides some source links) but these are readily available on eBay and at the 18650 battery store. By policy these batteries are not sold by Amazon. Yes, these batteries are not at your local hardware store but can easily be found on the Internet, unlike what some reviewers have said of 18650 batteries used in other kits.Besides the experience of building the robot, be prepared to learn a little about Raspberry Pi and Python (NOTE: You do not have to learn Python programming in order to operate the Robot Dog as the code is provided). The resources identified in the manual provide links to the complete operational code for the Robot Dog.I highly recommend Freenove kits and thus far I am sharing my first impressions of the Robot Dog Kit and look forward to sharing more after I have it up and working as a functional Robot Dog.