Reviews of OWI-536 All Terrain 3-in-1 RC Robot Kit - ATR

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $59.99
Sale Price: $38.99
Today's Bonus: 35% Off

This Robot is well made. Good Quality. It took us 3 hrs to assemble everything (normal pace). My Son is 6 yrs old and its difficult for him to assemble. Especially the screws and stuff. This Toy states this is for 13 yrs.

Be Careful while attaching Chains on the wheels. They are tricky and has potential to break if not careful enough.

Pros:

Good Quality Parts (Be careful when attaching the chains though)

Teaches how to assemble a Gear box with single and double motors

Teaches how to build a Remote Controller remote

Gives ideas to kids on the internals

Good Instructions

Cons:

Slow movement. I wish the motors could have been a little faster

No Lights. Its a 3-in-1 Robot, one or two red or green lights would have been cool

Some kind of sensors would have been good

Less expansion capability out of the box

No place to stick the battery for Gearbox or Arduino Nano etc (for Normal applications this might be OK)

I am giving this review 5 Stars as its me who wants to modify this to work with Arduino but, others will just use it as a Toy only without any expansion capabilities. For what it offers its a great robot educational toy for the Price and I highly recommend it.

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

This robot is fun to build and goes together easily. It brought back the pleasure of assembling kits and the kit is well thought out and designed. It also has the potential to be used for constructing other robots, but that is a hacker exercise; it should not be hard to make it into a rc controlled device rather than a wired controlled robot. It would make a good parent/child project. I haven't tested its playability with my grandchild yet, but I suspect it will hold her attention for a while. The main value would be as a good project to do with a child. It requires some patience and attention to detailed instructions. It would go to five stars if it had rc control; it was a close call. I gave it a three stars for durability but it could well be more durable than that; I just haven't given a child an opportunity to test its durability.

Best Deals for OWI-536 All Terrain 3-in-1 RC Robot Kit - ATR

Bought this for a project with my 10 year old. His second electronic/robot project...first was robotic arm. He was able to put most of it together himself. Like all of these kits, the instructions can be a bit challeging sometimes...mainly because tiny nuances of parts positions are shown in a picture, but not emphasized...so sometimes you end up wit the flange or screw hole facing the wrong way. If fixing a doorknob is beyond your capabilities...this kit isn't for you. If you are reasonably mechanically inclined, you'll figure it out fine. Best part was when I noticed a few days later that my son had converted robot into to a different vehicle all by himself.

Summary: A few hours of time well spent with your kid results in a robotic toy that teaches them real world examples of engineering and mechanics. Yes..it will break eventually...thats what happens to things your kids play with... but they will remember you building it with them for their entire life.

Honest reviews on OWI-536 All Terrain 3-in-1 RC Robot Kit - ATR

My son is almost 8, and he did need a lot of help in understanding the directions. But with my help and verbal explanation, he was able to put the parts in the right place, put the circuits and screws and gear in the right place, and now has a very cool fork lift. It easily goes over carpet, and he has fun playing with it. Like Legos, it requires assembly for everything. Unlike legos, he still enjoyed playing with it once it is built.

The part that I liked the most is that he saw a circuit board, wires, motors, and gears, and then transformed it into an operating machine. It really increased his confidence!

I also bought the robot arm... very different experience. It is harder to build, and I had to send it back because the PC board was damaged.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for OWI-536 All Terrain 3-in-1 RC Robot Kit - ATR

Took me about three hours to put together, you will need a size 1 Phillips screw driver for the kit. Not all screw drivers are the same size so make sure you have the right one or you will end up striping screws. It was very easy to put together, design is very simple. My thought on it was this was a Mechanical Engineer one upping an Electrical Engineer, there is no real "electronics" in the toy. Pretty much you push the remote stick forward and connect the power to the motor (ie motor goes forward) and you push the remote stick backward and the power is reversed to the motor (ie the motor goes backward). The jaws really cannot hold anything with much weight or they will break, so the box that comes with it is about it. I broke a piece connecting the treads changing between the models, the first time I was changing them. This was a gift from my wish list, but it felt like the person paid $35-50 for me to put together a $10 dollar store toy.

My four year old niece plays with the finished toy for about 2 minutes before getting board. It is a wired remote with about 6 foot of cord between the model and the remote.

Pros:

Easy to put together (with right sized tools)

Simple design

Great learning toy for simple remote controlled car type toy

Directions were easy to follow

Comes with cardboard box to lift and move

Creeps my cats out

Cons:

This is not a robot it is a fancy remote controlled car

Wired remote with about 6 foot of cord

No battery pack on the device all batteries are in the remote

No real "electronics" in the toy

After being build it is a "cheap" toy that cannot handle much more weight then a very small cardbord box (it comes with)

Easy to break tread attachments

There are some small parts are a pain to detach and clean.

Overall I enjoyed building the toy but now I do not know what to do with it.