What do you want to see one do?

Well, mine made me breakfast this morning.... sorry didn't take a video.... :P

Ok, very informative answers, thank you guys.

@twk1 ... You know, you are also welcome to show us how's it done too. ... :P

Rich has a ton of home automation using EZ-Robot. It's pretty intense :)

Richard R I said I have no experience with robots so how I could I show you? i was just asking a simple question but of course you had to attack like always. And home automation has been done by lots of companies for cheap for awhile. I think I'll wait and cancel my order for now, seems to only be something for tinkerers at the moment from reading the recent posts, I want something more simple. I will be back in the future though

Dude, there is no attack just sarcasm... what your robot can do is all about you... meaning, how well you program it... As they say the sky is the limits... :)

The ezb runs circles around pretty much every controller on the market... it as simple and as complex as you want it to be... In other words it will grow with you as you learn.... Buy it, you won't regret it... :)

You could buy an arduino, but (like what happened to me) after a while you'll quickly get board of roaming around avoid objects with a ping...

Like I said, what would you like it to do? I have both a JD and a Six, what can I demonstrate them doing for you? Or perhaps I can add a function to Jarvis using EZ-Robot hardware and software? :)

Richard R, what I am trying to say is I don't want to have to "Program it", I want to point and click to tell it what to do. And I do not believe it seems to be to that point yet after recent posts. It doesn't matter tho as I have already requested canceling my order. It's a great company and you guys are great contributors just not for someone like me right now.

If you can find another microcontroller which is as flexible and powerful using only a point and click interface I will send you an EZ-B V4.

@twk1... What's the fun in that?... You might as well buy a Robsapien .... or a another remote control toy... EZ Robot gives you the "Lego" of the robot world... the ability to create what you have always wanted to....

I do agree rc is more for me, I have a couple r/cs that will go over 70mph and a phantom quadcopter that can go to the next town over and return on its own. Robots are just something different and I just realized it's not what I want right now. its awesome for people like you that like to tinker a lot with things, just not me

Well, we do hope you come back... why don't you hang out here and see how things unfold... To be honest, I am kind of useless with RC (ok, I just plain suck). I would obliterate anything over 20mph... LOL

Too many to mention come here with no experience and converted a Wall-E to become autonomous using nothing more than the native controls in ARC. Some of the custom made robots (such as LeXi, Josh's Jarvis, Josh's fish tank, the handful of lawnmowers, snow plows, butler bots etc.) have been made from no previous robot experience. In fact, I had no previous robot experience other than a much simpler version of Jarvis (which, for the record, runs rings around any "cheap" home automation out there and even some not so cheap).

When you do want an easy entry in to robotics I can assure you that EZ-Robot is the easiest path for many reasons (the top two reasons being the customer support and the community). And my offer above is 100% genuine, if you can find another micro controller which is as powerful and flexible as the EZ-B and ARC using only a point and click interface I will send you one of my EZ-B V4s. :)

I do agree that ezb probably is the best, since I ordered the roli I tried using an Arduino and could get it to do very little besides blink. Although I went to vo tech in high school for electronics engineering I do not remember much. I will be back when it gets easier or I am interested again in learning about it

@twk1.

Hi there. I was just going through the forum and stumbled upon your thread and was sorry to hear that you cancelled your order, so I thought I would I would tell you about my EZ-Robot experience so far, to give you a view of someone else who has no experience in this field and was in the same place as you are now.

A little history. I jumped in the deep end and started a robot build from scratch nearly a year ago now with the initial intent of making him (K-9) radio controlled, but nearly half way through the build I came across the EZ-Robot website. After a few hours of going through their site, community forum, and Youtube videos I was hooked and made an order for a load of items from their store. I received my goods a couple of months ago now and have not long finishing installing the servos, camera, LED panel, radar (ping) sensor and of course the microcontroller (EZ-B v4). Now I know you said that you originally ordered a Roli Robot and your not building your own, but the items I listed above are exactly the same as what's in the revolution robots and they use the same software.

Now getting back to what you where saying about using and setting up the robots and software. I, like you, had no experience with robotics, at least not micro-controlled ones, only R/C, and have even less experience and knowledge of writing scripts or programming. Infact I have none whatsoever. K-9 is now fully built I am currently going through the set up stage with the EZ-Robots hard and software. As some of the other members on the forum can probably tell you, I'm no expert and sometimes ask for help if I'm really stuck, especially Rich and Richard who have been very kind to me (being a newbie and all) and both helped me out along with other members too, a lot of the time with a very quick response. As you have probably seen yourself, this really is a great forum community. They are helpful, knowledgable, from all walks of life, and are willing to help others sometimes supplying photos, videos and script examples you can simply copy and paste to your own robot project.

I wanted to hit on the point that you said about having a "point and shoot" ability to get going quickly. One of the great things about the ARC software is that it contains script examples of all their revolution robots, including Roli, which are simple to get hold of, are free to use, easy to customise for your own use if you wanted too, and a good source to learn from to create your own scripts later down the road. With a pre written script example and I tiny bit of easy tinkering, you could easily get a robot to do what you tell it to with little effort.

I am still a long way from learning all of the functions and script EZ-Robots have to offer, but with what I have achieved so far with K-9, again with no experience, I have to say that I am pleased with my progress, and even if I say so myself, K-9 has turned out to be pretty cool. Non of which would have been possible without EZ-Robots and its community.

I know you said you would like to see videos but I personally do not have one of K-9 just yet, but hoping to film and post one within a couple of weeks when I showcase him on the forum (keep a look out). I hope what I have written here has gone some way to hopefully make you think "well if he can do it, then I surly can" (which believe me, you really can) and hopefully reconsider your choice to leave robotics and give it another chance and stay with EZ-Robots. Good luck and as Richard said, I hope you do stick around.

Steve. :)

The brightest minds out there are trying to create autonomous robots that you are describing. It ain't easy.

They all have one thing in common, Moravec's Paradox. Hard problems with robot AI are easy and the easy problems are hard, and I mean really hard. Recognizing a face ,lifting a pencil or walking across a room.

It's all in the programming that hasn't been discovered yet or may never be discovered. But if anything else it gives you a immense appreciation for nature, and if anything it's fun.

@Steve G... Not bad for not having any previous robot or micro controller experience I have no excuse as I have previous experience in programing (Basic Atom, Basic Stamp and the Arduino).... I still am learning new stuff everyday, which includes ARC and the EZB4... It is in learning that we get excited and have fun... How boring would it be if we all knew everything so there is nothing left to learn?... I don't know about you but I plan on learning as much as possible until the day I take a dirt nap... :P

@Richard.

Thanks for your comment. These no going back for me now. I totally agree with you there about the learning just taking my time and enjoying it (mostly). Also that's why a went away from R/C in the end. I just got a bit boring in the end. sleep

RC does take skill, however for me the ezb4 is a new toy everyday... :)

@Richard R You make me chuckle. I have a feeling we would get along well IRL. My responses are so similar to yours sometimes....I just don't type them in.

@Zap... We probably would... I like to think of my sense of humour as ironic and sarcastic... 99.9% of the time my responses are made in jest... little ribbing if you will... Some of these robotic dudes have spent way to much time in the lab and need to get out more....Have a few beers and Loosen up a little... :P

If I am ever down your neck of the woods I am buying the beer... wait, even better... I'll bring some Canadian beer... :)

Steve G, thank you for sharing your experience getting to know robots. You and Richard R have made me kind of rethink about my decision to leave the robot arena for just R/C. They all have their positives with the negatives.

I have many r/c, a couple which can go crazy fast but that comes with a price such as expensive broken parts happening routinely, and places to use them. Also I have a phantom quadcoper that is amazing, It can fly it into the clouds taking video and will return by itself via gps. However many have had a phantom just take off never to be seen again cuz some signal confused it or whatever, meaning over $1200 disappeared in a few seconds( I'm lucky so far).

From what I can see from reading though, robots especially EZ robot you can make it do whatever you want, it just takes a little more work to make it happen. But the possibilities are endless instead of being powerful doing one thing like most r/c.

You guys and the rest of the community have helped me decide to give it another shot. It's a great community and hopefully I can help some day to.

@twk1... I can guarantee if you stick with ez robot long enough (as Steve G did) you will see how this is a natural extension of your RC hobby... To be honest I don't see why you can't combine the two. EZ Robot has made the learning curve as gentle as it can be... :)

What Richard R said..........And

It's as simple or complicated as you want to make it.

@twk1.

I'm glad that reading about my expeariance gave you food for thought, and really pleased you decided to give it another go. Good for you. Honestly, you won't regret it. ;)

Steve.