Review on Sphero Mini Orange App-Enabled Programmable Robot Ball STEM Educational Toy For Ages 8 & Up - Drive, Game & Code With Sphero Play & Edu App 1.57 by Albert Bohimia

As an amateur robot builder, I bought this on the first day it was available. I had great expectations.However, it simply does not perform.Here is what happens.1) Unbox. Quality looks good.2) Open and charge Sphero mini. Good.3) Install phone app. Good.4) Connect to the sphero with phone app. Good.5) Calibrate the sphero mini by orienting a LED to point at you. Good.6) Drive the sphero mini in a given direction. Passable.7) Drive the sphero mini in a different direction. You can hear the wheels spinning inside the shell as it tries to adjust. Lucky if it goes within 30 degrees of the intended direction.8) Each successive change in direction is less and less accurate. After three direction changes, it is pretty much random.Watching various video reviews would make you think that the reviewers are not good drivers. In fact, they think they are bad drivers. But in reality, the sphero mini is not a good direction follower.The issue is the calibration (see step #5 above) does not last long. If you try to re-calibrate later, it is obvious that the LED is pointing in the wrong direction.There is such a small point of contact between the sphero mini and the ground, that each direction change causes enough spinning that orientation is lost.I have three requests:1) Sphero could improve the sphero mini software by allowing an option where the calibration LED is always visible. The app would then have "steering" which allows you to change the direction the LED is pointing. And the app would also have a "forward/reverse slider" for speed control. This would remove the calibration issue and it would be much more controllable. Adding a "trim" to control max speed would be great too.2) Sphero could improve the sphero hardware. Add a magnetometer so that once the LED orientation is set, the magnetometer can maintain it. This is a very common robot technique for orientation.3) I challenge anyone to post a video of them driving the sphero mini two laps in a square pattern, four feet on a side.But for now, I don't recommend.