DFRobot is launching micro:Maqueen Plus this week, the newest offer of its 
popular educational robot series of micro:Maqueen. The new product, adopting 
machine learning technology, is designed for K-12 educators to teach AI through 
teaching AI. 

The Maqueen Plus is different from other educational programming robots on the 
market, for it is equipped with AI capable of machine learning and visual 
recognition. It is able to continuously improve its abilities to recognise 
lines, colours, signs, QR codes, etc. Maqueen Plus has become smarter and 
performs better in circumstances such as autopilot. This whole process provides 
a direct and detailed experience for students to explore ideas and outputs of 
AI technology.

With micro:Maqueen Plus, students can assemble a self-driving robot car by 
themselves. The body of Maqueen Plus contains few parts which can be assembled 
within minutes. The AI-powered 'eye', an AI vision sensor which gives the car 
recognition abilities, is only one click away from becoming smart--with the 
learning button pressed, the sensor begins observing targets in its frame and 
learning to recognize the target with built-in AI visual ability. 

"The best way to learn AI is to teach AI," said Liu, product manager of 
micro:Maqueen Plus. "We are looking for a feasible approach to introduce AI 
technology to today's STEM classroom. Being a STEM-based hardware, the first 
thing Maqueen Plus does is to make it possible for students to build physical 
projects, rather than just talking about AI technology in theory. In order to 
make it easy to incorporate with, the robot is compatible with popular 
platforms like micro:bit, so teachers don't have to spend much time on further 
trainings of robotics or AI-related algorithms. What's more, the robot is 
designed as a reusable educational hardware, with a friendly price no higher 
than current programming educational robots on the market that have no AI-based 
design."

Liu suggested that compared to previous micro:Maqueen, Maqueen Plus provides 
more flexible AI robot teaching programs, more functions and expansion ports. 
It has better power management, larger power supply capacity and chassis. 
Carrying abundant scientific and technological knowledge, it is not only 
suitable for classroom teaching, but can also be used for after school 
exercises and robot competitions.

Source: DFRobot