Yukai Engineering Inc., which plans and develops many communication robots and IoT products under the banner of “Making the world Yukai with robotics”, has released the “Yukai Picohan Robot Kit” of the 2022 “kurikit” educational series. Announced that it will be released on March 30, 2014 (Wednesday). The price is 9,900 yen (tax included).
Can be assembled and played with smartphones and programming
The “Yukai Picohan Robot Kit” is an assembly-type robot kit consisting of parts such as acrylic plates, tires, characteristic plastic hammers, and motors. The robot head is based on the picopico hammer, and the assembled robot can be easily operated or programmed with the remote control on the tablet or smartphone screen.
The “Yukai na Picohan Robot Kit” was developed and marketed after 6 years, triggered by an engineer from a Robocon technical college working on a prototype as a problem during a student internship. In addition, the block tournament and the final tournament were held online at the “Zero One Grand Slam 2021 Tournament” competition-style programming tournament (sponsored by the Junior Programming Promotion Organization) for all elementary school students studying programming in Japan. Thus, the “Yukai Picohan Robot Kit” was adopted as a competition robot, and we cooperated in the development of robot events.
The status of the tournament will be featured on March 31 (Thursday) on “Oha Suta” broadcast on the 6-station TV Tokyo Network.
Yukai Engineering develops the competition robot “Yukai na Picohan Robot” for the national elementary school programming competition “Zero One Grand Slam”
Features of “Yukai Picohan Robot”
Dynamically moving hammer
The robot head is based on a picopico hammer, and you can freely rotate the robot head up and down according to your own program.
Easy-to-use remote control screen
After assembling the robot, you can easily control it on the remote control screen. You can shake your head up and down and move back and forth and side to side. There is a counter that can count when an object hits the sensor on the front of the main body, and if you prepare two robots, you can enjoy battles competing for the number of counts. There are also several types of fun counting sounds.
You can move the robot with visual programming
For programming development, we have prepared an environment in which Scratch3.0 compatible software is customized and developed exclusively for robots. With intuitive visual programming, you can take on the challenge of developing software that moves robots without any special expertise.
3 steps to play
1. Let’s assemble the parts referring to the instruction manual and complete the robot
2. Let’s control with the remote control screen
3. Challenge your own program with visual programming!
History of development of “Yukai na Pikohan Robot”
Six years have passed since the prototype of the intern student. The robot kit I most wanted to make, developed by someone from Robocon Technical High School
Mr. Wada participated in the 2016 summer vacation of the internship program for engineering students recruited annually by Yukai Engineering. The challenge of the internship was to “make a robot using the materials sold at the 100 yen shop and fight”. At that time, I found materials such as a hammer, which was the basis of the design, and the rough structure and functions I developed became the prototype of the current Picohan robot.
Robots made by an intern in the summer of 2016. While using readily available materials, it was designed so you can actually move and fight.
After that, while spending days struggling to develop various robots and robot kits for the educational series, the “Yukai Picohan Robot Kit” continued to be developed while secretly burning the thoughts of those days.
The left is the first machine produced by Wada during the course. In addition to hammers, it is assembled using familiar materials such as table tennis balls, milk cartons and pieces of wood. The center is a development machine.
The mass-produced machine on the right was carefully designed by tough engineer Aki Takaoka, like the shape of the acrylic on the body and the way the parts fit together. Additionally, designer Hiroshi Mizuochi was in charge of designing the colorings, face stickers, packaging, and other visuals.
Commentary by engineer Yoshihisa Wada
“I created the robot that I wanted to make the most. The robots that can be crafted and crafted freely, such as the “Yukai Na Bouken Craft Kit” and the “Yukai Na Bouken Craft Kit” which were made in the kurikit series, are also attractive, but “creating from scratch is what I would like kids who are not good at it, but are interested in robots and programming to take up the challenge.
We hope that more children will get more interested in the world of software by experimenting not only with on-screen programming but also with moving a realistic robot that they have assembled in front of them. 』\
Commentary by engineer Aki Takaoka
“The first prototype was completed in 2 hours. After that, about 12 kinds of prototypes were repeated and brushed to reach the current Picohan. There are 6 kinds of bumpers alone, such as position adjustment and the shape of the center of gravity so that when the robot falls down you can get back up just by manipulating the robot, and the parts are shaped along the body so that the robot doesn’t look fat, i made the tower and I repeated the review. Also, since there are a lot of parts, we designed each of them with the awareness to avoid assembly errors. Another point is that the acrylic parts are joined using a cable tie instead of a screw to give an appropriate amount of slack and prevent injury from cracking.
Picohan thinks it’s not a perfect robot because it doesn’t always have the desired movement with just one sensor. However, when I do the programming by myself, if I would like to have a sensor or something like that, I would like you to make holes or add parts with adhesive and try to play more and more. 』\
Product Information
| Product Name | Robot Yukai Picohan |
|---|---|
| the price | 9,900 yen (tax included) |
| Finished size | W250 x D150 x H200mm (box size: W232 x D148 x H87mm) |
| finished weight | Approx. 260g (Excluding power supply. Shipping weight: Approx. 400g) |
| contents | Pico Pico hammer (1 piece), body parts (16 types, 17 pieces in total), tires (2 pieces), rotary motor (2 pieces), angle motor (1 piece), heart + kit (1 piece) , switch (1 piece) ), connector (3 pieces), arm sheet (4 pieces), capsule (2 pieces), cable tie (long 4 + short 20), double-sided tape (6 pieces), screws ( long 6 + short 3), pilot book (1)), eye sticker (1 sheet), welcome guide (1 sheet) |
| Power source | 3 AAA DC 4.5V batteries |
| Batteries included | nothing |
| About Kurikit | “Kurikit” is a series name that collectively refers to education-related products and programming environments published and offered by Yukai Engineering (creative = word coined by multiplying kit = a set of assembly materials). From the first production of robots to learning programming skills, anyone can easily learn hardware and software through the “kurikit” product with a playful feeling. |
Robot Yukai Picohan
Kurikit official website
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