What to Look for in Arduino Robot Kits

Since there are many Arduino robot kits available, it is important for one to know what to look for when acquiring a kit. For starters you should look at the ease of putting together the robot kit. Most of the kits are usually sent in parts that you have to assemble. Trust me, you don’t want to spend days trying to figure out where a certain screw goes or find out that you assembled the whole thing backwards once you are done.

The ease of attaching sensors and actuators to the kit should also be considered. Well, you can use the robot kit with the sensors and actuators that come pre-installed, but where is the fun in that? You should be able to add other sensors on your board easily and, if possible, without having to solder anything. This gives you versatility and allows you to maximize the usage of your robot kit.

Structural flexibility also plays a huge role in determining the Arduino robot kit to use. A kit that can be changed to different kinds of robots or used for a wide variety of functions enables the user to learn more when using it. It also allows the use of sensors and actuators in different ways, which is not only fun but also a good learning experience.

Microcontroller integration is another aspect that needs consideration. There are some kits that come with a microcontroller on-board, and others that don’t. With the microcontroller on board, you don’t have to purchase an Arduino board to control the robot kit. This also makes the kit compact since we don’t have to stack any arduino boards onto it.

Price is always a contentious issue, even with open source robot kits. It is always good to make sure that you get value for money. Expensive does not necessarily mean exemplary, nor does cheap mean mediocre.