A “Link” to the Future

San Diego-based educational robotics firm Robolink is looking ahead.

With a sense of fun and play, CEO Hansol Hong keeps coming up with new robotics kits to educate tomorrow's generation of roboticists.

His latest?  A robot called "Zumi", which is a female robot and geared towards young girls!

And she's designed to teach her users to code autonomous vehicles through AI!

Routing algorithms, ethics and deep learning are all a part of the skills Zumi teaches.

Zumi's Kickstarter program launched at the start of CES® 2019, and will continue through March 9th.   Zumi's Kickstarter program reached its $50,000 goal within the first week, according to their Kickstarter page.   At this point, pledges received have more than doubled that  goal--and counting.

We've had the pleasure of covering Robolink's previous innovations since the 2015 Orange County Mini Maker Faire.

So far, we've seen the Rokit Smart kit--which enabled future roboticists to build a dozen robots...

...and the CoDrone, a 2016 kit which allowed users to program their own drones in about ten minutes.

As we walked into CES® 2019's Robotics and AI pavilion, Hansol was the first exhibitor we saw, at his Zumi booth.  And he was displaying another new award, for his latest creation!

(The CoDrone, in 2016, won a finalist award in CES®' "Last Gadget Standing" competition.)

"How cool is that," was our initial reaction.  Even more so, when we learned that the goal is to teach the young creators how to program self-driving vehicles!

Hansol's newest innovation won a "Best of CES® Innovation" 2019 award at the Las Vegas show in January.  From the floor of the "Robotics and AI" hall, Hansol shared the story of Robolink's newest robot, his goals for the future and how Zumi works.
On this edition of Over Coffee®, you will hear:

What the new educational kit, Zumi, can do for students;

Why Zumi is a female robot!;

Hansol's experiences with Kickstarter for Zumi, and when the kit will be available;

How Hansol and his crew found out about the Innovation Award;

How Zumi works, for two different groups of students;

The development process which Hansol and his team employ, prior to marketing any robot;

What Hansol considers to be the most important lesson he has learned, as an educator and innovator, while creating his robotics kits.