If you think Mindstorms and Vex are too high end, the Smart Video Car by SunFounder is a great budget option. You obviously shouldn’t expect the same build quality or versatility with this kit, but it’s still a nice bit of gear with some pretty awesome features.

It comes with mostly everything you need to build your own remote control car, the coolest bit being the wide angle USB webcam that can live stream videos or images to your computer, smartphone or tablet!

However, if you don’t own them already you will need to purchase some rechargeable lithium ion batteries and a Rasberry Pi – a tiny open source computer. We recommend the Pi 3 Model B+ as it has a powerful processor and built in WIFI/bluetooth connectivity. It is also recommended to buy a PH00 phillips head screwdriver for the M1.25 screws and a pair of needle nose pliers for when space is to too tight for the wrench. This is not essential but will make things easier.

SunFounder provide a manual to guide you through the assembly, although we recommend also using the additional video tutorials on YouTube. There’s also the forum if you get really stuck!

Putting the car together is fiddly but there is no soldering involved when assembling the circuit board as the wiring simply slots together, which allows room for error. They also provide 2 spares for every screw and nut which is a nice touch – there’s nothing worse than losing those essential bits!

Please note it is strongly advised that you set up your Raspberry Pi & software up to the calibration stage before building the vehicle. This is because the HDMI port becomes blocked off once the car is assembled and you have to unscrew the circuit boards to access it. You can find a video tutorial on the software installation here. Unfortunately for SunFounder, this small mistake seems to be the source of quite a few of their unhappy customers.

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Control of the car and camera can be done in one of two ways. Firstly with the user interface which runs in a browser so it can be controlled remotely with any device that supports this. The range is equal to the reach of your WIFI, but technically it would be possible to install a 3G dongle and sim card for unlimited range!

The second option is to program functions in with either Python – a dynamic and widely used language, or Dragit – a graphical, drag-and-drop programming interface developed by SunFounder.

Our criticisms of this particular kit mainly relate to the poor quality in a couple of areas. Firstly, the screws provided are pretty weak and some will likely break during assembly. Rather than providing 2 spares for each it would have been better to just provide one decent set of screws! You may even want to replace them with better quality ones from the outset.

Secondly, the servo motors are not great quality and they can lack the precision for the car to make accurate turns or drive consistently in a straight line. Again, you could replace these if you have the technical capability. If this is the case you may also enjoy modifying your vehicle further with this modular sensor kit.

Despite these criticisms, this is still a great little kit for the Raspberry Pi and provides a good introduction to the field. This is a robotics kit for adults which serves primarily as a learning tool, not as an RC toy.

Summary

A lot of time and research goes into recommending what we think are some of the best kits, but also the most suitable to your particular needs and interests. So we hope you’ve found this review useful! If you are more interested in the coding aspect, you may find our review of the best coding & programming interesting – be sure to check out Cozmo! Otherwise, check out our general list of STEM toys for adults. As always, thanks for reading!