How to raise 500% of your KickStarter target with days to spare… make a very cool programmable Lego robot
WHEN electronics engineer Brenton O’Brien launched his Kickstarter crowd funding campaign at the end of July, he was hoping to raise $20,000 to produce 5000 of the little programmable robots he had developed in his studio in Adelaide, South Australia. What happened next was unexpected but understandable — the world got behind a cool project with a commendable goal and pledged $104,958 with time to spare.
O’Brien developed his inexpensive programmable Edison robot to help teach young students across the globe about how technology works.
“I’ve had very strong interest from South America, Singapore and the United Kingdom after dealing with education-based businesses in these countries,” he said as he launched the campaign, before adding “I’m confident these distributors will place orders in the immediate future.”
O’Brien was confident he was on a winner because he knew that prohibitive costs and the complexity of current robotic products meant schools chose cheaper options to incorporate technological learning in the classrooms.
“There are currently robot products available, which are excellent, but cost around $400 to $500 each,” he said. “I’m pricing the Edison at $30 each for a class of 30 students.”
His aim is to significantly reduce the cost of implementing robotics in primary and secondary schools by making available a programmable robot that costs less than a typical school textbook.
“We’ve had interest from overseas educational distributors as this is an extremely exciting project that will break down the existing cost barriers and revolutionise the take up of robotics in schools across the world,” O’Brien said.
The computer software that programs and operates the robot is based a graphical programming language with drag and drop icons that form the robot’s program. It also has built-in programs that are activated by driving over barcodes.
“By creating a structure or ‘sentence’ of these icons together students can make the robot drive a specific distance, react to sound, light and even obstacles in the robot’s way.”
Top it off with the fact that Edison is compatible with LEGO ® building blocks — and you have a $100,000 winner.
