DJI Robomaster S1 is an educational tank drone that's every bit as cool as it sounds

“Robomaster s1 was developed with a generation of young innovators in mind”. The DJI Robomaster S1 is now on sale in Europe. It’s a tank-cum-educational robot, and it was born out of DJI’s Robomaster competition.

The S1 stands for step 1 – with DJI seeing the product as an entry point for young coders, as well as the first step into creating educational robots.

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The Robomaster S1 was announced earlier in the year, but it has taken a few extra months to make its way to Europe.

The tank is available now for £499 (€549) and can be purchased with a £155 (€169) Play More Kit at a later date. The Play More Kit includes a dedicated gamepad, additional gel beads, one battery and a gel bead container.

The drone has a range of features to teach young people coding (Scratch and Python), while allowing them to have a laugh at the same time.

Buy now: RoboMaster S1 from the official DJI Store 

The DJI Robomaster S1 presents a challenge right out of the box – 107 parts and 101 screws that you have to put together.

The tank drone comes fitted with a 1080p FPV camera and 31 sensors (more than the average DJI flying drone) – with six sensors just for detecting the gel beads and infrared beams fired during games.

The combination of camera and sensors allows for various types of recognition to take place – allowing for a wide range of activities. The types of recognition include: S1 Recognition, People Recognition, Line Recognition, Gesture Recognition and Clapping Recognition.

All of the learning and gameplay is guides by DJI’s dedicated S1 app. The app includes Road to Mastery and Roboacademy for teaching users as well as MasterBoard for tracking progress.

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DJI Robomaster S1 − Is it any good?

I had the opportunity to see the DJI Robomaster S1 in action – as well as to give it a go myself. I wasn’t able to go in-depth with the coding side of the Robomaster but the gameplay was a blast.

DJI offers a wide range of games to play from laser tag style matches and straight-up races to shooting non-toxic gel beads and modes with Mario Kart-like power-ups.

Controlling the DJI Robomaster S1 on the app is super easy. The FPV camera feed has a game-like overlay on your screen and you end up getting completely immersed – forgetting you are controlling a real-life mini tank.

You can buy a controller to act as a one-handed add-on to a device you’d use to control the Robomaster – but I don’t think it’s wholly necessary as the touchscreen controls worked pretty well.

The drones really are a marvel to watch. The omnidirectional movement of the Robomaster is a marvel to watch and the various inclusions like the gel bead cannon and on-board feedback lights seem to work seamlessly.

The DJI Robomaster S1 definitely seems like a blast. However, the main stumbling block is that you really need friends who have also stumped up the £499 to get the best experience – playing with this on your own just wouldn’t be the same.

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