Brooklyn Robot Foundry

Jessica Lawrence, Executive Director of the NY Tech Meetup, mentioned Brooklyn Robot Foundry’s Girls’ Club during a speech at South by Southwest and during a panel discussion on WNYC’s The Greene Space!

Jessica’s speech at SXSW was entitled, “There’s No Ambition Gap: Truth About Women in Tech”. The panel discussion on WNYC was on “How Tech is Changing the Way Woman Work”. We feel so honored to be mentioned in both!

She talks about an experience she had while eating at a local restaurant. One of our Girls’ Club members came into the restaurant and brought her newly created robot cat. She was giddy with pride as she showed the other restaurant patrons the robot she had just completed. Jessica was so struck with the experience that she decided to include it in her SXSW speech as well as to talk about it again during the panel discussion.

In the South by Southwest talk, we are mentioned around 37:50. During the panel discussion, we are mentioned around 38:00.

And here is a quick video of the cute kitty itself!

Siemond Chan from Yahoo Finance came in last week to do an interview. You can check out the interview here. What an exciting week indeed!

After Siemond and I talked for a bit up in the office, he stuck around and got to experience the excitement of an after school session and snapped a few quick photos. It was really fun talking about what we do and then being able to show a session in action. I really enjoyed seeing how the article came together!

We are in New York Magazine’s Best of 2013 as one of New York’s Best Kids Workshops!!! Check it out online! We are on page 92 of the print magazine.

We feel so lucky to have been mentioned. What an honor! So exciting!

Thanks to all of our customers and friends who have supported us. New customers often say they heard about us from their friends and we just want to say thanks for spreading the word about what we do! We appreciate it so much!

Are you looking for something for your kids to do and really enjoy on Monday for Presidents Day? Send them to us and they will build their own artsy robots!

The class is a collaboration with Brooklyn’s own Makers Toolbox and should be a blast!

Kids will build and design their own drawing robots and also create a really cool electronic night/reading light.

For more details, go here!

Due to the winter storm, we are canceling all activities for Saturday Feb 9th (Open Play, Tin Can Robot Class). The retail shop will also be closed.

Enjoy the snow!

If you aren’t already familiar with Boulder, Colorado based SparkFun Electronics, let us proudly introduce you to them… here are four reasons we love them:

1.) They design and sell inventive products (like the Bright Bunny Kit which we use in our Robot Girls Club), have a clear, easy to navigate website, and they ship things for a reasonable amount – which is so rare for hobbyist, electronics companies.

2.) If you ever go to Maker Faire on the west coast, you have to check out their massive booth.   I’ve never seen so many kids and parents soldering together.  And the great thing is that just like in our soldering classes at the Foundry, the kids totally focus and behave.  Plus, they bring out these incredible SparkFun vending machines that sell their products – such a neat scene.

3.) One time this past Christmas season, I put together a small order at SparkFun, went to check out, and I was greeted with this:

I was so astounded, that I took a screenshot of it, and finally get the chance to share this.  What an incredible promotion and surprise – they basically just gave me what I had ordered for free.  Unbelievable.

4.) They just posted a really nice interview that they did with Jenny and me.

Thanks SparkFun!

We’ve got two new class offerings this weekend at Brooklyn Robot Foundry!

Doodling Robot from 12:30 to 2:00 on Saturday for kids as young as 6 and as old as 8.
Flying and Floating Robots from 3:00 to 4:30 on Saturday for kids as young as 4 and as old as 6.

And we’ll be extending our Open Play sessions until May! Starting this Saturday (February 2nd), the new hours will be from 9:00 to 11:30.

Hope to see you at the Foundry!

We have much afoot at the Foundry during the upcoming holiday weekend…

Martin Luther King day
We have a great all-day session planned for Monday, starting at 9 and ending at 3, with an option for extended day until as late as 6.

Saturday and Sunday morning open play
You are welcome to drop your 5-10 year old children off for an hour or more on weekend mornings from 8:30 to 11:30.

Saturday 12:30 to 2:00
Brush Bot class for children 6-8 years old.

Saturday 3:00 to 6:00
Electronic Stuffed Animals for children 8-13 years old

Sunday 3:00 to 4:30
Tin Can Robot for children 8-9 years old

Donal Uhrbrock / Time Life Pictures / Getty

We’ll be leading an all day session on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day and are taking our inspiration from The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (August 28, 1963) of which Dr. King was an organizer. In this all day session, we will build a model of the path of the march, from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, and build moving and talking robots to populate our Washington DC!

After a short lesson on Dr. King, we will be build a great, moving robot that includes sound chip. We used Dr. King’s historic “I have a Dream Speech” for our prototype, but the kids can record their own sounds and words. During the second half of the day we will construct a large cardboard model of Washington, DC with all of its landmarks, parks and monuments for the robots.

The session runs from 9-3 with an extended day option that runs till 6:00. The session costs $135 with a $10/hour extra cost for extended day.*

*Because of slightly higher material costs (ie talking computer chips) the session price will slightly higher than our normal all day sessions. But we thought it would be worth the extra cost to leave the day with a talking robot…

The day is geared to kids as young as 6 and as old as 10.

You can read more and register here!

Best,

–Brooklyn Robot Foundry

Drop your kids off at Brooklyn Robot Foundry on weekend mornings in January while you exercise, shop or have a coffee date with a friend! Kids will have a great time building obstacle courses for our robots, crafting robots out of clay and found objects, creating marble runs, giant lego creations and much more. The kids will have a blast and you will get to have some time on your own.

You can read about details in terms of process, price and age limits here:
Open Play

For those interested in working towards some New Years resolutions… this drop-off time happens to coincide with some great fitness offerings in the neighborhood. The following businesses offer classes and workouts that overlap with this drop-off time (You’ll want to double check with each company to determine their class schedule and terms…)

Triomph Fitness
Bend and Bloom Yoga
Captain Quinn’s Bootcamp (These guys are offering a free class to parents who drop their kids off at the foundry during one of these sessions!)

Cross Fit South Brooklyn
New Body Bootcamp

And here is a list of other great places to hang out near Brooklyn Robot Foundry: