CoDrone Mini Programmable Coding STEM Educational Drone Kit for Kids 8+ & Adult

CoDrone Mini is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’ve got it to learn to code myself for fun and wanted to inspire my nieces and nephews who come by often.It’s definitely mini, but very durable. It banged into the wall a couple times in the beginning, but still works perfectly fine. Once you get a hang of the whole thing, it’s pretty easy to navigate and the remote controller definitely helps.The acrobatics are quite impressive. It can zip around and do flips!The programmable part was definitely why I’ve got this. Pretty easy to do so using Blockly or Python. Just gotta find a couple videos that works with what you’re trying to do. Since Blockly (like Scratch) is easy to learn, I even got my niece program it with some obstacle courses and she was had a blast! Definitely recommend!

I came across this super cool kids' drone that has been a hit with my little one! It's incredibly durable and can handle all the crashes and bumps that come with enthusiastic play. Flying it indoors has been a blast—the controls are easy to learn, and my kid quickly got the hang of it, zipping it around the house. The only downside is that the battery lasts around 5-10 minutes, so it's a bummer when the fun gets cut short. Wish it came with an extra battery. But overall, it's been a fantastic indoor adventure companion, providing endless entertainment for my child.

I have an 8yo boy who is very interested in drones and programming. I figured for a $20 drone that can be programmed, it might just be worth the nearly 5x cost.I ordered it as a Christmas gift, and my boy was thrilled. Right out the box, it flew reasonably well with the remote - though the drift was pretty excessive and trim was not precise enough to zero it out. No big deal.However after just a few cycles of flight, the thing developed a mind of its own. It would suddenly begin to increase altitude, get stuck on the ceiling, and no command would bring it down (even emergency stop). Other times it would just randomly race off in a direction and no control would stop it.Worse yet, when using the PC to control the drone (via the remote/USB cable) about half of the Blocky commands would be skipped. Adding a 1s wait between commands improved it marginally, but there was zero consistency.At some point within the first 48 hours I contacted Robolink support. And while the girl I spoke with was very friendly and not rushed, she was unable to provide assistance. Instead, she started a case and told me to email their support group - which I did. That generated an auto response, followed by a personalized email asking for additional information. I provided that info. Then waited. After a week, I sent a follow up email. Crickets. Then another week. At the third week, I sent a "reply by COB this Friday, or I will post a scathing review" email... Again zero reply (even to this day).I then checked the return policy for the device (since it was purchased in December). The return period extended until 1/31/22. Unfortunately, by the time I checked, it was 2/2/22. I had missed the window by three days. Quite frustrated, I reached out to Amazon and let them know that I was strung along by Robolink. They agreed, and promptly allow me to refund/exchange the unit. I chose the latter, as my boy is still very much interested in programming it.It arrived a week later, and while it does work better, it is still nearly unusable with the Blocky programming as most of the commands are skipped. It's funny to read their promo materials where they show kids running these things through an obstacle course. Complete and utter BS. There is no way this drone could be programmed with that level of precision - at least not in its current iteration.To say that we're disappointed in this purchase is an understatement. It is a great concept, just poorly executed, and even worse support. It is simply not ready for primetime.

A great product it is exactly what you paid for. Has a short battery life of 5-8 minutes which is expected. The drone has problems moving and staying level. If you move the drone hard to the side it may rise or drop in height. It is not a problem if you go slow enough.

I bought this drone because I'm a teacher that uses robots in the classroom as teaching tools for coding, and at $90 it's not too bad to test out. A lot of drones are either too expensive, cheap but break easily, just remote control only with no educational value, are programmable but don't have a lot of content for learning, have connection problems when you have more than a handful in the class, or several of the problems above. What I found is that the CoDrone MIni actually has a lot of content for teaching. Their website includes a bunch of tutorials, and they also provide lesson plans, which are useful for me as a teacher. Unlike a lot of drones I've found, this one actually gets pretty in-depth in the teaching material.In classrooms (whenever schools fully reopen), we often have to deal with Bluetooth problems with a lot of robots, which I've had before with a few of the other drones I've used. This one seems to be using a radio signal like an RC car, so having a bunch run shouldn't be a problem in a classroom setting. I'll need to test this with more at a time, but based on past experience with radio remote controllers, it shouldn't be a problem.As for durability, this is something I always look for with things I bring into the classroom for the kids. I've been flying it around my house a bunch to test how much of a beating it can take, because with it passing between a bunch of students and people testing out their code over and over, it'll have to be able to take a bunch of hits. It has a shell on top which protects the board inside. The shell eventually got scratched up, but that didn't mess up its performance.You can also use the remote to balance the drone out, and it looks like you can do that with code as well.I'm pretty excited to have my students try it out whenever we can get back in the classroom!