Drive Over this Robot and It Keeps on Going
Edison is another overpromising educational/GUI/Lego robot. $35 on Amazon, cheap enough. But the inventor does look a bit like an inmate in his orange suit... No real competition for S3, other than you can drive your car over it and it still works (see 1:35). Kids, don't try that at home! Fun & wacky video, they easily overfunded on their Kickstarter campaign.
![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/skmVeFYgHCs/0.jpg)
![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/skmVeFYgHCs/0.jpg)
Comments
I call BS on 1:35
You don't see the size of the car, nor the condition of the wheels afterwards. Once the robot's wheels are compressed the load of a small car would be distributed across the entire frame of the robot. A small car like a Smart Car would put about four hundred pounds on it. I think ABS could handle that.
But I would guess that the axles and wheels were pretty messed up afterwards. It might have driven a few feet and that's it.
erco - did you get one?
That is cool. Almost as cool as programming your watch with your monitor : )
The 1135 backers pledged for a total of 2,806 units which put the $20k target at 5 fold. Usually, these types of "overfunded" Kickstarters get ugly by creating unexpected challenges for the developers that were only prepared for their original goal.
However, these were built in China and ran through a fulfillment house in Hong Kong by MicroBric, whom already has relationships with manufacturers, other robot platforms under their belt, and similar software using light transmission programming already developed, etc. In other words, this isn't a new game for them. Factoring that along with the simplistic board and low cost for plastics, I could easily see a cost of around $20 each at that quantity (including software development).
In any case, I am sure that at least $30k of the Kickstarter funds went into their pockets. If it was a startup company, I would say maybe $10k would go into their pockets since you would have more challenges, overseas relationships to establish, greater software development costs, etc.
So, I would call this Kickstarter a definite success. Essentially, Microbric had their development costs covered upfront, they delivered to their customers, and they walked away with cash and a product still on the market.
I guess I'm not a robopreneur?
I still have one of those Timex Ironman Datalink watches I ran MANY miles with it. Those worked great with CRT monitors, less so with LCD types.
That's awesome. I wasn't able to get the CRT programming software installed on Win 10. The software that uses the LED will install but doesn't support screen programming. May have to boot up a Win98 VM.
https://meetedison.com/content/EdBook1-Your-EdVenture-into-Robotics-Your're-a-Controller.pdf?x20535
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HSFMK6G