Best Robotic Kits for High School Students - STEM Toys UK (2024)

Robotics kits are a great toy when it comes to STEM learning, this is thanks to a single kit being able to effectively cover multiple STEM topics including physics, mechanics, electronics, maths and computer programming all interchangeably and at the same time as each other. Another great thing about most robotics kits is that they have great “upgradability” – this means they are easy to build up over time by keeping adding little bits to the kit as you develop your learning (e.g. new motors, gearboxes, microcontrollers, wheels, electronics components etc.). This gives robotics kits a big advantage over many other STEM toys in that they can be kept and enjoyed for many years and built up however you want them to be.

What to Look for in a Robotics Kit

Robotics kits can come in many different shapes and sizes and focus on teaching different skills along the way, from rolling robots built on sets of wheels through to humanoid like contraptions, robotic arms, insect-like robots and everything in-between, there are plenty of robotics kits to choose from!

When choosing a robotics kit for an older child of secondary school age (11 – 18) it is important to identify some of the more advanced kits with more flexibility and room for learning the different STEM topics individually and in more depth. For example, a robotics kit which lets you actually build a gearbox up, set the gearing ratios and couple to a motor yourself would be more suitable for a child in this age range than a kit whereby the motor and gearbox come pre-built, sealed-up and ready to go (therefore, perhaps, aimed more at younger children). This isn’t a hard and fast rule and different kits will take different approaches to teaching the fundamentals, but it is something to think about and, generally speaking, the more flexible a kit is the more STEM learning it can facilitate. Some of the main areas to look for in a robotics kit might include:

Programmability

Some kits are less focused on the actual mechanics of robot building and more so on the ability to program the robot once it is built!

This approach, when done correctly, can lead to a robotics kit being the foundation for learning not only basic programming (e.g. turn right / left etc.) but also aid in the understanding of more advanced topics including monitoring motor speed, calculating distance and working with feedback from various electronic components including ultrasonic and light sensors.

This is also a good time to think about what exactly is being programmed with your robotics kit. Some kits, such as those from bigger toy companies, might have proprietary programming tools which are specific to that kit whereas others, which are built up using something like an Aurdino or Raspberry Pi at their core, might allow more generic programming skills to be learned with industry standard languages such as C++ or Python.

There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer here, but given we are looking at kits for slightly older children I would tempted to look at a kit which makes us of a raspberry Pi or Aurdino style board given this can be used to teach a much wider variety of programming skills than other, more property methods might otherwise do.

Mechanics

Having just talked about the programmability of any given kit being very useful, it is also worth looking at how flexible the kit is in terms of its mechanical components and how adaptable and interchangeable they might be.

Some kits take more of a “plug and play” approach to the included mechanical components including the gearboxes, motors, wheels etc. This means, for example, a gearbox, motor and wheel might all be pre-built and sealed up as a single building block.

If the main aim of your kit is, say, to focus more on the programming side of robotics then this might not necessarily be too much of an issue in taking this approach. If, on the other hand, your aim is to learn more about mechanics and get stuck into experimenting with different motors, gearbox ratios etc. then bear this in mind when choosing your kit (and aim for something which can be more easily adapted or upgraded in this regard).

Electronics

The final area to look for when choosing a robotics kit is the electronics capability of the kit and how flexible and upgradable this might be.

Some kits, in the same way as for the mechanical components mentioned earlier on, might make the electronics less of a focus and provide “ready made blocks” which can simply be plugged-in to the robot as and when needed. In contrast, other kits might make building up the electronics sub-system more of a feature of the kit and in turn help students develop more electronics focused skills (for example, this might involve building up or wiring certain parts of electronics circuits together manually).

Arduino vs Raspberry Pi for Robotics

Whilst looking for robotics kits in the 11 to 18 age range you will probably notice one thing of late, many kits are being built around either a Arduino microcontroller board or a Raspberry Pi mini-computer in order to provide some level of programmability within the kit!

Naturally, you might be asking yourself which solution is best and, crucially, which has the most potential both for learning about programming and providing more flexibility to the kit itself in the future.

Thankfully, you shouldn’t have to worry too much here as both are excellent products and can be used to aid the teaching of programming concepts to a very high standard. Both boards do, however, have their own pros and cons which is something I will look into in this section.

Arduino

The Arduino is an open source electronics prototyping board which makes working with both hardware and software at the same time very easy!

By being open source and also making use of many industry standard components means this board is readily available, cheap and has a huge community and support network already formed around it.

At its core is a microcontroller which can be programmed to read inputs from electronics components (e.g. light sensors) and then, via a software program called a sketch, make something happen (e.g. turn a motor on).

Naturally, this kind of functionality means the Arduino board is ideally suited to building robotics, furthermore, by making use of the C++ programming language it can be of great help in teaching strong programming skills when used within a robotics kit!

Raspberry Pi

In many ways the Raspberry Pi is a step up from an Arduino board and is a fully functional Linux computer in its own right! This means it can potentially be used for more advanced robotics tasks and also more easily make use of other popular programming languages such as Python as well as C++.

Raspberry Pi also uses a set of GPIO (General Purpose Input / Output) pins which can be used for helping the board interact with the outside world in a similar way that the Arduino does. This means from a robotics point of view we can connect various electronics components to the computer and then use them as inputs for generating signals within our software (e.g. when a light sensor detects light, turn on a motor).

Our Top 5 Robotics Kits (for 11 to 18 year olds)

Finally, in this section we are going to list some of our favourite robotics kits. As discussed throughout this post already, these will be kits with a focus on allowing students more flexibility to dig deeper into the core STEM topics and develop skills including computer programming, electronics, mechanics, mathematics and more to a much higher level.

The ELEGOO Smart Robot Kit is an all-in-one robotics kit based around the Arduino prototyping board. The kit features numerous mechanical and electrical components aimed at facilitating the learning of robotics via tasks such as driving motors, following lines, object avoidance and infrared remote control.

From a programming standpoint, the use of Arduino at its core means that a good level of functionality can be added to this kit thanks to the addition to the the included sensors (infrared, ultrasonic and a webcam mounted on the front of the device) which can form the inputs for such Arduino programs.

An official ELEGOO smartphone app is also available which can be used to control the device manually and all instructions and building guides (including some video guides) can be easily downloaded from the ELEGOO website.

Built around the excellent Raspberry Pi microcomputer, the Smart Robot Car Kit from SUNFOUNDER is a great way of learning about many robotics techniques including driving motors, following lines, avoiding or following light and making use of ultrasonic sensors for object avoidance.

Being based upon the Raspberry Pi means that the included collection of sensors (including the special line following and light tracking modules) can form the input of many different types of programs and allows great flexibility as to what can be built. Support for the Python language in addition to the (block based) Dragit editor (making use of the Snap programming language) is also supported and good documentation is provided via the SUNFOUNDR website.

NB – The Raspberry Pi unit itself is not included in this kit and must be purchased separately.

One of the best things about the Freenove Hexapod Robot kit is that it provides support for both the Aurduino and Raspberry Pi boards within the same package!

This means that as a basis for learning programming, the Hexapod can be used with both programming systems and essentially provides double the programming learning capabilities versus many robotics kits which tend to support only one system or the other.

Moving on to the actual kit itself and it is clear that this robot is built to mimic a crawling insect! Initially, this might sound unusual, but when looking into the design further it is clear that this approach opens up many great STEM learning opportunities given there are multiple movement modes from the 18 included motors! Also included is a Wi-Fi connectivity board helping to reduce the need for cables when using this device and the capability to control the device via an Android or iOS phone or tablet.

Finally, support in the form of building instructions and a demonstration video are available to download from the supporting Freenove website.

NB – Neither the Raspberry Pi, Aurduino nor any Batteries are included with the kit!

The Lego Mindstorms kit represents a high quality, all-in-one robotics kit ideal for students ages 10 and upwards. With 5 different models of robot available to build, almost 1000 pieces to work with and an innovative programming app from lego themselves, this really is a comprehensive robotics kit!

Whilst this kit will be, undoubtedly, towards the more expensive end of the robot kits featured on this page, it does come with everything needed right in the box, ready to go and is supported by a leading toy brand, Lego!

Similar to the Hexapod kit covered further up on this list, the Freenove 4WD Smart car Kit is a great kit for learning the basics of robotics and programming.

Where this kit differs from the Hexapod is that it is a vehicle driven by wheels (versus the insect crawling mechanism) and is designed to work only with the Raspberry Pi board as opposed to providing additional support for Arduino which is provided by the Hexapod.

Where this kit does excel is in providing sensors allowing line following, light tracking, object avoidance as well as face tracking thanks to the included camera module! Programming is supported via the Raspberry Pi computer (not included) and is supported by Freenove thanks to the 110 page downloadable code samples and tutorials booklet.

Conclusion

All of the kits featured on this page will provide a good base for learning about robotics and the various STEM subjects which underpin the discipline.

One important area in which these kits do differ is in the type of programming languages and microcontroller / computer platforms upon which they are built (some supporting Arduino whereas others are favoring Raspberry Pi). If your child already is learning with one platform (say at school) then it might be better to look at kits which already make use of that same platform. Alternatively, if you are not yet sure of which platform to use, then kits such as the Freenove Hexapod Robot Kit which supports both Arduino and Raspberry Pi might be a much safer choice.

If finding an easy to use and “ready to go” kit is more important than the specifics of the programming language used, then the Lego Mindstorms kit might be a great choice to get into robotics without needing to worry about Arduino vs Raspberry Pi!