Cubelets are essentially a robot-making kit, but what kind of robot is completely up to you. There are four basic types of cubes – ‘utility’, ‘action’, ‘sensor’ and ‘think’. Every robot needs a battery cube (utility), an action cube (to tell it what to do) and a sense cube (to tell it when to do whatever it does).
For example, a robot with a drive cube (wheels) and a distance sensor cube (and a battery cube of course, but every robot needs one of those) will try and roll away when something gets close.
I’ve been hearing rumours and watching videos of prototype versions of cubelets for quite some time now, and they’re almost here. You can pre-order the KT06 kit for $160 (around Rs 8,000) now, or the KT01 kit for $520 (around Rs 26,000). The current estimated shipping date is May 7th this year.
The KT06 contains six blocks and the KT01 comes with 20. Admittedly, it seems pretty damn expensive, but remember that this is modular robotics, not Play-doh. And like the strange Dutch man in the video says – “there’s a million ways for cubelets to work together!”
The end is nigh!
There are currently 15 different cubes including speakers, flashlights and knobs (tee hee). There are a lot more flavours on their way and they even accept suggestions for new blocks. Personally, I think hover blocks would be a hit, as well as candy dispensers and rocket cubes.
Soon, these things will learn how to assemble themselves, leading to the collapse of civilisation as we know it. Until then, however, you can pre-order the KT06 kit here and the KT01 (the big one) here. Just think of the awesome.
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