Parrot Minidrones Jumping Sumo

The two-wheeled Jumping Sumo toy robot has more than a little spring in its step.

This smartphone-controlled drone, the ground-based sibling to the Parrot Minidrones Rolling Spider, has a spring-loaded tail, and connects not via Bluetooth but by Wi-Fi, creating its own Wi-Fi network to which you connect your smartphone or tablet.

Unveiled at CES in Las Vegas in January, the Jumping Sumo has a wide-angle camera mounted in its nose that streams live video to the tablet, allowing remote control of the little robot when out of view, although actually doing so is really quite tricky.

Otherwise, controlling the Sumo is pretty straightforward. The app has with one virtual joystick for forwards and backwards, with tilt for fine turning, and another for rotating it like a tank and performing tricks. Rolling at up to two metres-per-second, the wheels can be extended or contracted for increased stability at high speed or manoeuvrability at low speed – or just for squeezing through tight gaps.

Hit the jump button and bot will hunker down on its tail before bouncing up 80cm into the air, landing on its big flexible shock-absorbing wheels. It can also skip forward at a lower height, which makes climbing large stairs and other obstacles quite fun.

The Sumo has a few other little tricks up its sleeve with spin jumps, swerves and others all performed like a mini acrobat. This has the effect of making the driver look extremely skilled, despite all that’s required is the tapping of a button.

Parrot’s “road plan” feature also allows you to map out a choreographed series of manoeuvres before hitting a button and seeing the Sumo take off on its own – not quite autonomous driving, but a novelty worth exploring.

It sometimes dropped off the Wi-Fi connection in the office, possibly to do with the number of networks available causing interference. Switching Wi-Fi channels and frequencies using the app made it much more reliable.

A single 90-minute charge will last for about 20 minutes, while the camera in the nose could capture low-resolution photos of a cat, dog or anything else at ground level.

The bot will also record video, but only if a flash drive is awkwardly inserted in the top via the microUSB port. It’s a disappointing oversight on Parrot’s part; the original and much-larger AR Drone released in 2010 could record video straight to the smartphone from its on-board camera.