Ollo and Robotis Play 600 Coding Kits Review

When it comes to robotics and coding, we would say a small child and our reviewer are on comparable footing, so who better to review these sets than him? The Play 600 Set is the more compact of the two, and includes a motorized CM-20 block, as well as a host of differently shaped parts. Robotis building parts are connected via rivets, looped through or plugged into the molded holes. The rivets plug in a manner that is satisfyingly secure. Very secure! To disassemble, we highly recommend using the included pryer tool, rather than breaking a nail. Bear in mind that the motorized module does require 2 AA batteries which are not included. Also not included are instructions for more than half the creatures. Instead you can find them on the R+M Design app, which our reviewer couldn’t find on his play store. He ended up juat making a bird. It rolls around smoothly on the plug-in wheels once you power it on. 

Now for the much larger K Set. This set not only boasts far more pieces, and far more builds, separated into different bags, but also more features. The motorized CM-50 block has motion sensors on it, to help your builds detect movement, or avoid obstacles, depending on the mode. Yes, it has multiple modes, all named after notes in the vocal scale, do, re, mi, fa and so on. We built a boxer fellah, and we’re pleased to report that the motion sensor is very responsive, and the motor is snappy as well. If you’re craving even more functionality, there are even more features like an optional controller, coding app and video tutorials. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the controller to work, maybe because the build was incompatible, but the informational instructions are so disparate, it was hard to keep track between the print out, the pdfs, and the activity pages breaking up the building steps. It’s not that efficiently organized, in our opinion. Oh also, the CM-50 block needs 3 AAs and the controller would need 2, none of which are included.