One cat get lots of wheels, cheap motors, ultrasonic sensors and fake Arduinos for 129$. Though mummy with solder iron doesn’t look look that sexy as in current photo.
Edit: I was thinking about this problem recently. There is LEGO camp with their educational robots. Sets with power functions are great for the start.
Then there are these educational toys like in the article. And I don’t believe in this at all. They will get boring soon and there is no way for upgrades.
There are educational microcomputers like micro:bit. I think they are great if they were used in schools, but that part of education is parental topic in most countries.
And there is dyi corner, I have electronics lab at home. I built a simple Arduino based vehicle with ultrasonic sensor that turned left if encountered obstacle 50 cm away. It was most popular toy for weeks! Despite duct tape and lack of aesthetics.
This is the gateway, not the destination. It's a low-cost piece of kit that removes a potential barrier to entry.
I can't tell most of my mates to build a robot for their kid to learn with. I can't support one I built myself. I CAN tell them to pick one of these up to help get their little monsters on their way to happily building SkyNet.
A lot of parents aren't going to DIY a robot for their kids. They don't have the skillset and aren't going to learn it for something their kid might not even enjoy dealing with.
They might recognize the Root rt0 as the spiritual successor to the Roamer and Turtle they grew up with in school though, if they were in the UK at least.
I enjoyed using a Turtle, which is basically an ancient massive tethered version of this, with the Logo programming language.
You can slap that Not-Lego plate on and grab a some Lego Technics, and suddenly you've fitted a rocket launcher and you're programming a tank.
They can then graduate to Lego Mindstorms or an Arduino or micro:bit or some Pi robotics kit afterwards.
And the Root rt0 will likely keep a good chunk of its value on resale.
The idea is to buy it and have your kids love it and outgrow it. It's the push that makes them move, if you will.
Whoever decided to call it a "Brick Top" presumably didn't watch Guy Ritchie's masterpiece Snatch. Probably not something you want the kids Googling as understandably, the top results are Alan Ford's character.
Edit: I was thinking about this problem recently. There is LEGO camp with their educational robots. Sets with power functions are great for the start. Then there are these educational toys like in the article. And I don’t believe in this at all. They will get boring soon and there is no way for upgrades. There are educational microcomputers like micro:bit. I think they are great if they were used in schools, but that part of education is parental topic in most countries. And there is dyi corner, I have electronics lab at home. I built a simple Arduino based vehicle with ultrasonic sensor that turned left if encountered obstacle 50 cm away. It was most popular toy for weeks! Despite duct tape and lack of aesthetics.