03 Sep STEM Learning with an Adorable Robot
The mBot2 by Makeblock promises to deliver a comprehensive, engaging, and interactive introduction to coding and robotics, making it an exciting option for parents looking to incorporate STEM education into their homeschool curriculum.
As a homeschooling parent, I’m always on the lookout for resources that not only educate but also inspire my children to explore and create. In 2017 or so, we purchased the mBot – possibly the world’s cutest looking little robot for my young teen who loved coding. We wanted to give him the opportunity to test his coding skills in real life.
Now, in 2024, we are excited to give the upgraded version of this robot a test run. The mBot2 (sometimes also referred to as an mBot Neo) maintains a lot of the robust features, ease of use, and the promise of making coding fun and accessible for kids that its predecessor offered, but with some upgrades. In this post, we’ll share our experiences using mBot2 and my thoughts as a homeschool mom.
*Disclosure: MakeBlock reached out and sent us this robot, but my opinions of it are my own – especially since we have an older edition that we purchased ourselves and have enjoyed using over the years – including while we tested this new one, so we could see the differences between the two versions.*
What is mBot2?
My 9 year old daughter described our mBot2 as a “cute little robot that always wants to explore.” In reality, it’s a next-generation, programmable robot that you build and code yourself. It is powered by a CyberPi board and can be upgraded with a variety of extension packs. It’s intended for kids ages 8+, but it will depend on your child and their comfort level with computers and coding. I personally would consider it a good fit for 10+ for most kids, and think that it can be used well-past the high school years when you shift to more challenging coding options.
The Robot
When it arrives, mBot2 needs to be put together. It comes with everything you need: a metal chassis, wheels, sensors, an RBG sensor strip, two motors, the mBot Shield, and the CyberPi controller. There is even a screwdriver. The instructions are easy enough to follow that my 11 year old and 9 year old were able to do it without my help.
When it’s all assembled, it looks adorable because the front sensors give the appearance of eyes and there’s a curve in the chassis which turns into a smiling, friendly face.
Helpful Tip: Make sure that you connect the right motor to the right spot in the shield connections or your mBot will not respond as you expect and could end up like ours – driving in confused circles instead of following instructions.
Unlike the original mBot which required a battery case and 4 AA batteries, mBot2 is now chargeable with a USB cable. The original one also used a RaspberryPi board whereas the new one is CyberPi – and has a removeable controller with a small joystick.
The Program
There are some preset programs already fresh out of the box, but you will need to download and install the official programming software to make it do whatever you’d like outside of that. It’s from MakeBlock. They offer a variety of robotic coding software programs for free, but the one that you need for our little mBot friend is MakeBlock5. It can be used directly on a web browser (Google Chrome is recommended), downloaded to your computer as a program, or downloaded for a device as an app for Android or iOs with some restrictions.
MakeBlock 5 uses drag and drop code – like Scratch does – which makes it user-friendly for all ages, but it also has the unique option to examine and code in Python as well.
The Add-Ons
Although the core mBot2 robot is quite enough to keep your child or teen engaged for hours, they do also offer additional pieces which you can attach to your main bot for extra fun and coding adventures. The main add-on pack is called the “Smart World Adds-on Pack” and comes with extras like arms, balls, additional front wheels, and a set of two servo motors. We love that we can get him to play a fun little game of soccer (as soon as we figure out how!)
There are also extras like a wireless dongle to connect to your computer through wi-fi, activity boards (like a big map), a rover add-on which gives mBot2 some treads instead of wheels, “legs,” and I think I even saw a possible camera attachment available directly through the MakeBlock store. (However, it seems as though they don’t ship to Canada through the website, so you’d be best to reach out to find out where to buy these additions here in Canada as they say they can suggest local retailers for you.)
Learning Code
The most challenging part of the whole product is learning the code. This is where we had the largest learning curve with the robot. The actual coding part isn’t too tricky if you are using the drag-and-drop editor, but there are several things that you need to do before you start coding it in order to make it actually work, and unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of tutorials.
My kids tried coding mBot2 first, but soon complained that they couldn’t get him to do anything they were trying to. That left it to me to discover what was wrong. I’ve been working with computers since the dawn of the home computer – so I typically feel fairly confident in my tech skills, including general coding, so I found it extremely frustrating when I couldn’t figure out how to make our little robot work properly right out of the box.
Helpful tips from my experience:
- Check that the firmware is updated to the last edition. Plug mBot2 into the computer and link it with the MakeBlock program. There are options to update the firmware. This is important, especially when the product is fresh out of the box.
- Make sure that you add all the extensions that you currently have attached to your robot into the coding program, that you are coding the CyberPi, and that is linked to your mBot2.
It did take a bit of time, but I did find some helpful troubleshooting tutorials here.
MakeBlock comes with premade examples of code so that you can see exactly how the code is put together, with explanations of why and what. I found this helpful as I troubleshooted things. Once I had the above challenges sorted out, we were able to get our new friend to sing, move, say “hello”, follow the lines on his provided map, and more using the drag and drop editor.
I’m a big fan of this style of coding, especially for kids, because it takes out the frustration of errors due to typos and the need to learn a new language to make your robot work. You literally say start here, do this, and stop. Your child will learn how various common coding sequences work, such as if/then commands, repetition, and how things have to happen in a certain order to be able to run correctly.
When your child is ready to move onto a new challenge, you can open the Python window. This window will convert the drag and drop editor into the Python coding language so they can make the connection between the two and eventually, you can just code straight in Python itself. It’s a unique way to develop more coding skills.
Once you’ve created, edited, or copied the code that you want, you attach mBot2 to your computer or device and click the connect button. Once connected, you have the option of either uploading the code directly onto your Cyber Pi – creating a new program which you can run after disconnecting it from the computer, or you can do a “live” option, where the robot will do the tasks you’ve coded while still connected to the computer.
We have found the live option handy, specifically when it wasn’t a moving task, because then you can edit code on the fly if you see that you’ve made mistakes, need to tweak something real time, etc. We like to use the upload option when we know everything is set and he’s ready to go. Of course, if the coding is specifically for a lot of movement – like line following with sensors or obstacle avoidance, that can be tricky with the limitations of the space when still attached.
Educational Content as a Homeschooler
As we continue to navigate in a more tech-based world, I feel that coding is an extremely important STEM skill to have. We have had our kids using computers since they were very young, and encouraged them to learn how to code in a variety of activities over the years – including robotics. As a homeschooler, I love that we can do this on our own.
For mBot2, while we do enjoy the freedom we have just playing around with the program directly, I was happy to find a downloadable 122 page lesson plan which includes more details on the specs of the robot itself, but also has 9 specific lessons to challenge your kids as they learn what they can do with mBot2. You can find it here as the “mBot2 Basic Courses.”
These lessons are for grades 5+ and are considered to be for beginners. They challenge kids to discover more about their new mBot2 friend and how it moves, senses, sounds, plays, and works. Typically, lessons provided by companies are designed for classroom groups, but the benefit of this coding set of lessons is it’s not created this way. Each of the lessons gives instructions on how to complete a task, some direction on how to make it work with code and then sends kids off to try it themselves – which is very individual. We were able to have both kids (and myself) work together to troubleshoot and figure out the challenge.
If your children master these basic concepts, you can then move onto more complex skills through some of their other curriculum / lesson plans, including some done in partnership with Logics Academy. I’ve also seen some other classes and programs available on sites like Outschool.
mBot2 and the Power of AI
We haven’t gotten far enough into our mBot2 coding experience to tap into some of its more exciting and advanced features, but this little robot is able to use the power of Artificial Intelligence. Some of the examples they share on the website include teaching your robot to dance along with you, recognize when it’s flipped upside down and call for help, singing you a song when you tell it you are bored, learn what your cat is trying to tell you, move plants into more light when it senses there isn’t enough, give you updates on the weather, and more. You can see these examples on their website by scrolling down to the AI section of this page. I think this is a great neat feature – especially given how AI is being integrated into so many areas of our lives. Kids need to be familiar with this, and mBot2 makes it easy.
Pros & Cons of the mBot2
As with everything, there are pros and cons. Here’s what we experienced and felt while testing and learning with mBot2.
Pros
- Frankly, the biggest pro for me is how adorable this robot is without looking babyish. A lot of the robots designed for kids have a very toy-like appearance, which might be fine when they are young, but can be a turn off when you are dealing with older children and teens. This is cute, but not a toy.
- It has some great add-ons and can work with other extensions as well to help make this robot even more enjoyable.
- Once you get over the learning curve, you can code it to do so many different things.
- The coding is kid-friendly, meaning they don’t need to be heavily into a specific code language thanks to the drag-and-drop option, plus it takes away the pressure of spelling struggles.
- It also allows for more complex coding skills with the Python, meaning that mBot2 can grow with your student’s skills instead of becoming too easy or overly simplified.
- The price point is fairly reasonable, especially considering what you can do with it. Many of the robot options for kids have limitations to what they can actually do or don’t really require a lot of coding. Other educational robotics tend to run way higher in pricing than mBot2.
Cons
- There is a learning curve required, which can be frustrating, especially if you aren’t techy. This, in my opinion, is the biggest challenge.
- There were limited tutorials that I could find to help me figure out what was going wrong and how to troubleshoot. Most of the time the answer was “update the firmware” – which was a good answer but felt a lot like the whole “Did you turn it off and on again?” with IT support. I was able to get it working properly after several different attempts.
Cost & Where to Buy mBot2 as a Canadian
The mBot2 base kit is about $200 CAD. The SmartWorld add-on pack is about $100. The most cost efficient place to buy it in Canada is through Amazon.
Final Thoughts
We love our little mBot2. He’s adorable and easily programmed by my children while still offering me the opportunity to challenge myself as well. I love that we can grow with the robot, developing into more complicated coding skills through Python and that my kids can continue their STEM learning with a fun project.
This is our second MakeBlock mBot and we have enjoyed them both. I expect that it will continue to be of interest to my children for several years and I think they are planning to figure out if they can get the robots to interact. Now, if I could just get my daughter to stop bringing him to the kitchen table at meal times… that would be great.
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