SunFounder PiDog AI Robot Dog Kit for Raspberry Pi 4/3B+/3B/Zero 2W, ChatGPT-4o Enabled with Voice Command & Video Recognition, App Control, FPV, 12 Servos, Gyroscope, Camera, Mic (RPI NOT Included)

This robot is an excellent "starter" or "educational" kit for the new robotics enthusiast. For the price, the kit is impressive on many levels:1. A wide variety of sensors lets you experiment with many different modalities: camera/video, sound, ultrasonic distance, acceleration, direction of sound, and touch.2. solidly built with precision fitting parts, and clear instructions and videos to construct it3. tons of open source examples coded in python, illustrating simple behaviors as well as complex things like balance on uneven terrain, and integration with ChatGPT4. an interesting array of servos and outputs, including speaker, tail-wag, full roll/pitch/yaw head movement, mood-lights, and 8-servo walkingDuring construction, I made one mistake. I posted a question to the SunFounder forum, and got an exceptionally quick and helpful response, to solve my problem.I am a coder by profession, so I really appreciate all the examples they have provided. There are so many options for customizing behaviors. I will be playing with this (ie, coding cool behaviors) for many many hours.And the robot is pretty cute to look at too.

The media could not be loaded. Pidog just seems so happy, wagging his tail and doing superman and howling and trotting tricks. I watched the assembly videos and used the paper assembly instructions too - the two together complemented each other, and the only problems were where I failed to follow the instructions, which nevertheless were really good. You do need patience and good dexterity to build it - some parts are quite small and the screws and nuts for servos can be challenging. You want to think about building it as a fun challenge, like a puzzle, not as a chore full of difficulties, and you'll have a good time. It's not a simple build - there are about 70 steps, but all the parts are there and clearly labeled.The documentation is really well done - from the hardware build to how to install & run the software. The canned example programs are fun and pidog is perky and does fun stuff. It has so many sensors and behaviors.Support is good. There's a forum for asking questions and you get an answer in a day. I dropped Pidog and broke a neck servo, and also the speaker failed so no sound initially. Sunfounder shipped me replacement parts which arrived in about 2 weeks.I've run all the examples, and I'm working through the section where you create your own programs based on the source code they give you, and I find the function examples documentation clear. I suspect there's an API doc in there somewhere but haven't found it yet. It is not a software programming course, but rather a vehicle for trying python programming in a robot. Depending on your skill level with software you may spend more or less time trying to understand and re-create the sample code they give you.I'm an experienced roboticist and I was prepared to struggle and the whole experience turned out to be pleasantly problem-free. There will be learning experiences for those not so advanced - but that's why you choose a kit like this. But be careful not to give it so someone who doesn't have the right mind-set.

Done bother buying this if you have no real computer experience, Word, Excel , Instagram doesn't count.There are many hooks, and knowledge of Linux/SSH is needed, a portable router makes it easier. Things don't just work automatically.Nevertheless, if you're into learning, this is a fun project. You will make mistakes and will have to somewhat troubleshoot.The instructions are very good, follow it exactly, especially "zero" out the servos. They have online videos too. Biggest problems are software issues. The manual actually says you may need to repeat the steps several times (audio). Use a PI 3 or PI4, do not use a PI zero or Pi 5. They you 32bit rasbian not 64 but, and the library used is old.Screws are very small.

Completely agree with the other reviews, this is a clever design showcasing how a variety of sensors and the SunFounder's robot hat can be combined to achieve complex actions and behaviors, in this case mimicking the behavior of a dog! The examples you see on the video are real, the ear scratching, the howling, including the superdog pose when getting picked up.It is educational to be shown examples of how all these are achieved with a capable board, a bunch of sensors, and programming. Sensor readings, servos and motor controls are very easy to work with via Python. The instructions are very clear, and the website has plenty and very good examples showing every aspects of using the board to build what you want, including autoboot into listening mode so it can be always on.I have yet to try the ChatGPT integration, but I have worked with OpenAI APIs before so I am confident it will work. I can imagine prompting additional puppy actions triggers and verbal dialog / action capabilities into PiDog, making it a perfect STEM toy and kids companion.PiDog is sheer fun, but the hardware that comes with it has a lot of potential uses. It is definitely worth getting if you are like me who want to experiment building robots, but just want to focus on the level of events and actions, and don't want to spend time on the low-level hardware integration, interrupts, register readings side of things! I am excited to experiment building things I had in mind for a long time but was limited by not knowing how to work with sensors. Now I am no longer blocked!One more thing to highlight is their responsive and helpful customer service. My speaker failed on arrival, and after some troubleshooting back and forth with their patience customer service, including showing them videos of my testing, I was given a replacement board for free and everything now works.