Dajiang RoboMasterS1 seems to have opened a door to a new world...

The last time we talked about Xinjiang, it may be because of its internal "high-pressure anti-corruption" and the disease of large enterprises.

However, this time Dajiang swept away its depression a year ago. It took its first educational robot, the mecha master RoboMaster S1, to the altar.

RoboMaster how hot S1 is, we don't know yet. However, from the tip of the iceberg that has already been revealed, especially RoboMaster S1's popularity of programming and imagination in the game field, it may be the next "Apple" and "Tesla" in the robot field ".

In particular, what RoboMaster S1 is doing now has far surpassed Apple and Tesla with destructive factors. From the summer summer camp in 2013 to the 2019 RoboMaster S1 built-in Scratch 3.0 programming language friendly to primary and secondary school students, from the earliest robot holiday camp with only 24 college students to the 2019 season with 174 colleges and universities and more than 7000 young engineers participating in the college student robot brand competition, roboMaster S1 can be said to be building China's "robot education for all ecology" on its own ".

Of course, saying this will inevitably hold Dajiang too high, but considering the six years of RoboMaster dormancy, the current blockbuster does not seem to be so unacceptable.

And considering that before RoboMaster S1, Aibo, Jibo, Cozmo, Kuri, Vector;LegoMindstorms, defending and SenseRover Pro, the "blue thread" of the ancestors; RoboMaster S1 may have only chosen the "most correct" development path from the very beginning.

(1)
The collapse of social robots
○

The concept of social robot is known to the world through the animated movie "Da Bai", and it rose in 2014, started a business in 2015, and reached its peak in 2016. However, after that, 2017 suddenly turned cold and died in 2018.

As early as 1999, Sony took the lead in insight into the world's first home robot Aibo. However, due to the avant-garde concept of Aibo, it had to be removed from the shelves in 2006. On November 1, 2017, Sony released the new artificial intelligence model "aibo" of "Aibo".

Jibo

Cozmo

Vector

Kuri



After that, several social robots that were once famous:

In 2014, Jibo, a family social robot created by Dr. MIT Cynthia Breazeal leadership team, was launched in Indiegogo;

In 2016, Anki launched the model intelligent pet robot Cozmo and upgraded it to Vector in 2018;

In 2017, Bosch's team Mayfield Robotics launched Kuri, a home robot, during CES.

Seeing it rise from a tall building, seeing its building collapse:

In August 2018, Bosch's Kuri robot announced the suspension of production;

In March 2019, Jibo, a star company of smart home social robots, announced that it would shut down its server;

In April 2019, Anki, a Silicon Valley star startup robot company, suddenly announced its closure.

On the one hand, the failure of social robots is due to the fragility of early "machine intelligence", and the social methods that can be supported are extremely limited; on the other hand, our vision has not been released, and the space for robots to play is too narrow.

Of course, this is also related to the popularity of smartphones in the same period and becoming a necessity of life; the entertainment ecology of smartphones does not give social robots much space.

②
The scuffle of educational robots
○

Lego Mindstorms

Defend the land

SenseRover Mini&SenseRover pro



After the failure of social robots, the "pseudo-tuyere" of knowledge payment has given many people hope. Since the robot itself is difficult to please people, why don't we "please" people with the content produced?

As a result, education has become a means of "political correctness.

It is needless to say that some audio and sound box operations are co-branded. As the cake for knowledge payment itself is small, the number of people who can break through knowledge payment is always limited, and children's programming has become more and more popular in recent years. As a result, programming hit it off with robots.

The earliest and most influential programmable robot is probably Lego:

Lego Mindstorms (Lego Robot) is a collective term for a collection of programmable hosts, electric motors, sensors, and Lego Technic parts (gears, axles, beams, bolts); the first retail version of Lego Mindstorms was launched in 1998. It was called Robotics Invention System (RIS), and the latest version was Lego Mindstorms EV3, which was launched in 2013.

In China, the earlier programmable robots are probably Cambrian Handiblox and Shangtang SenseRover:

In May 2018, Cambrian launched the programming education robot "Defend the Land" (Handiblox). Users can open the main control screen and set it up according to the guidance of the installation video.

In May 2019, Shang Tang released the SenseRover pro self-driving car and SenseRover Mini car. The two robots are mainly designed for AI teaching scenes in schools. Students can complete unmanned driving formation on predetermined roads through programming and control.

But there is a problem here: pure content intelligent robots have no threshold, but they are almost the same as smart speakers; programmable robots have a higher threshold, but the interaction methods are relatively simple and not too attractive.

Until the appearance of RoboMaster S1 in Dajiang.

(3)
The Rise of Fighting Robots
○

RoboMaster S1

Although Dajiang Yan must call RoboMaster S1 an educational robot, it has indeed gathered a lot of fans in colleges and universities. However, in the eyes of discerning people, the most attractive thing about RoboMaster S1 is not its ability to program, but the imagination brought by RoboMaster S1 "fighting.

However, RoboMaster S1 needs to use programming to "build" custom skills, which is simply a "magic pen" and very skillfully integrates education and games.

"Robomaster:The Animated Series" short animation

Due to the natural adaptability of RoboMaster S1 and FPS games, coupled with the promotion of DJI, this semi-real-life battle mode of "man-machine integration" is bound to attract young people easily.

Animation is the first step. Will there be fewer movies, games and even world competitions in the future?

RoboMaster S1 is connected to FPS games, there is almost no sense of disobedience. The "mecha hunter" on the trembles shows us another possibility: the strength, speed and stability of the machine body only need to be considered for the weapon to chop. Wheels can use universal wheels or spherical wheels. As for jumping, chopping and flying tactics, special duel and magnetic levitation can be solved.

It is still a little difficult to make it fly for the time being. However, we can combine with XR technology, similar to "Gundam Creator". We only need to make several "initial machine" templates with relatively high compatibility to carry other manual models (built-in data templates of different materials). After the Battle.net reads the models, it can be realized on the network. Finally, the man-machine link can be completed through somatosensory equipment.

If all the above can be achieved, does RoboMaster S1 open the door to another virtual world beyond us?

Before the arrival of artificial intelligence, what we need may only be more "dexterous" machine intelligence; and this kind of machine intelligence is the "best code" "" explored "by the vast number of programming enthusiasts and gamers".

In the end, when the game needs programming, who will "play with things and lose their will"?

From the chicken ribs of social robots to the bony sense of educational robots, the survival mode of applied robots may be to integrate themselves into games and become a brick in the virtual world.

And we can also explore more possibilities of the virtual world based on the real world.

But who can be sure that some of the laws of the virtual world cannot be perceived by reality?

For example, the network world of the above fighting robots will be technically possible in the near future, and what we have to do is to "design" more real terminals for the future network world like RoboMaster S1.

At this stage, what our industrial designers can do is far more than just mobile phone cases, not just power banks, not just massage sticks; we must have greater hopes, turn ourselves into an engine, and become the real world and the online world. "Close" future terminal designers.

PS: Some picture materials come from @ Pinwan @ Zhihu @ Aifaner @ Geek Park