HEXBUG VEX Motorized Robotic Arm

Wonderful toy!!! I bought this as an intro to the whole Vex robotics world, and I have to say I am impressed. Probably about a year ago, I bought a robot from another company, and it was OK. This, however, is brilliant. For those familiar with LEGO builds, you will find this very familiar in many ways.To start, the instructions were great. No words, in a kind of IKEA fashion, but MUCH easier to understand. And in color.I don’t remember how many hours it took me to put this together, but I do know my 10 year old son was able to put together the legs of this before his goldfish attention span took him elsewhere. I was able to pick right up where he left off and run with it.Everything worked as advertised. I was able to make it do what it was supposed to do and am quite pleased by it.As for ANY downside, I would have to say my biggest critique is that it doesn’t have fine motor control. You can’t slowly move parts. One speed and one speed only. But that’s it.For those buying this as their first robot to put together, be careful to place all parts exactly as instructed. Additionally, you very likely will have to fine tune how the hands are placed, as I had to do. It’s also not fragile, but don’t expect it to be bulletproof.I highly recommend this product. The price point is right to get a feel for how Vex robots behave and are constructed. I definitely will be buying the IQ set at some point and hope to get my boy interested in integrating a Raspberry Pi or Arduino into his builds.

My 11 year old granddaughter was attending 6th grade on line due to COVID. Her project required a robot that could pick up trash. This was perfect. It used illustrations for assembling and worked perfectly. Thank you

The base of the structure could have been engineered better. as well as the base of the arm itself could have been built better not only for 360 movement ( the wires bunch up and sometimes the base snags on the anchor points) but also the way it fastens to the base of the structure. besides that...relatively good instructions and works well and the kid loved it! i will be making my own base though to make the arm itself more functional and stable.

I normally don’t take the time to write reviews. But I want to say that Hexbug Vex is a great product backed by excellent customer service. We recently started on the robotic arm and discovered that we were missing a critical part. A quick email conversion with customer service and they had the part in the mail. Well worth the price even if only for the great customer service.

As others have reviewed, this item is fragile. If you rotate it too much, it will break itself. Getting the pieces back together when it separates is a major pain and very time-consuming. I wanted to use this as a demo of the function of a robotic arm, but it tends to be in need of repair more often than not. The main issue is with the design of the base.

I had a great time with my son building this robot, towards the end, I found that a small piece was missing, still can handle to make it work. Instructions are easy to follow and more important I spent quality time with my buddy.

Money very well spent. My 7 year old loved assembling it and learning about gears and drivers.

Fascinating toy. Great for DIY projects. Right now I am using it with Arduino (with some tweaking) and Raspberry Pi (with a lot of tweaking), planning to convert it into wireless with Xbee modules.