RoboKind Co-Founder Brings Robots4STEM to Dallas New Tech July Event

Richard Margolin, co-founder of RoboKind, took to the stage last Tuesday at the July Dallas New Tech showcase to introduce the company’s newest product for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.

The presentation established the importance of RoboKind’s Robots4STEM program by illustrating the current climate of STEM education. According to Margolin, “Over the last two decades, every STEM area we’ve increased engagement in the number of classes kids are taking except computer science. That’s actually decreased in the last two decades,” continued Margolin. “It’s not just we’re doing worse than in other areas, we’re doing worse than we were two decades ago.”

With this dire portrait in mind, RoboKind has taken initiative to increase student interest in STEM courses by addressing the issue of how the material is taught. Margolin elaborates on seeing traditional approaches as boring and ineffectual, which can create disinterest in children who may already be influenced by the widespread perception that science and math-based classes are dull and uninspiring.

Robots4STEM seeks to shake up the education of computer science and coding by providing a user-friendly platform, with both its on-screen avatar and in-class robot, Jett, that is as inviting and encouraging as it is informing. According to Margolin, that makes all the difference. “We’ve got visual programming, that’s not new. But what we’re doing is we’re making it more engaging.”