What a class needs¶
Access for every learner¶
Robonine Lab is sold as one annual subscription per person, bought inside that person's own account. There is no seat pool, no bulk checkout, no per-school invoice flow and no trial in the product.
That leaves three workable arrangements:
The straightforward one, and the only self-service one. Each learner creates an account and subscribes. Best for adult and university groups.
Learners subscribe and the institution refunds them. Administratively ordinary; no product support needed.
For a cohort, write to hello@robonine.com before anybody buys anything. Access can be granted to named accounts by hand, which is how institutional groups are handled today. Agree it in advance — it is not something the platform does on its own.
Under-16s and accounts
Every learner needs an email address to receive the sign-in link, and accounts are personal. Check your institution's rules on pupils creating accounts on third-party services, and on the email addresses you use, before the first session. The platform has no parental-consent flow and no school-managed account type.
Arms¶
You do not need one arm per learner, and most groups should not start there.
| Arms | Group | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | up to 4 | Rotation. Everyone works in the virtual arm; each learner takes the real one for the hands-on step. Slow but genuinely workable. |
| 1 per 2 | any | The sweet spot. One drives, one reads the step aloud and watches the work zone, swap every step. |
| 1 per learner | small groups | Fastest, most expensive, and the noisiest to supervise. |
Modules 0, 1 and 7 need no arm at all, so a class can start before the hardware arrives.
Computers¶
Per the equipment checklist: Windows 10, macOS 11 or Ubuntu 20.04 as a floor, 8 GB of memory, a GPU that does WebGL 2.0, and Chrome or another Chromium browser.
Two things to check with whoever manages the machines, before the first session:
- The browser must be Chromium. Safari and Firefox cannot reach the hardware at all. A managed fleet that only ships Firefox will stop the course dead.
- USB device access must not be blocked. Some managed images and some enterprise policies disable the browser's device permissions. Test on a real lab machine, signed in as a real pupil account, not on your own laptop.
Network¶
Ordinary web access is enough for the course itself. One feature is firewall-sensitive: the remote session that lets one learner drive another's arm is a peer-to-peer connection using a public STUN server with no relay. School firewalls block this often enough that you should test it on the school network the week before, not on the day.
The room¶
- 40 × 40 cm of clear desk per arm, plus elbow room.
- A mains socket per arm, and a plug you can reach fast — the kit has no physical emergency-stop button, so the wall is your hard stop. See Safety.
- Enough space that no one is standing inside an arm's reach while it runs.
Consumables and extras¶
| For | Item |
|---|---|
| Module 6 | A pencil per arm and a stack of A4 paper |
| Modules 7–8 | A webcam per arm, optional; a small blue cube and a cylinder |
| Module 1, if building | 3D-printed parts, a screwdriver and hex key per pair, spare M2 × 6 and M3 × 6 |
| Everywhere | Spare USB cables. Charge-only cables are the single most common false alarm. |
