Northwest Aerospace News April | May Issue No.14 | Page 49

M
arzetta is an out-of-the-box
thinker in his own right, who first
conceived the idea for Minds-i after
participating in an industry roundtable
charged with seeking solutions to the
workforce shortage in manufacturing
and other technical fields. He pon-
dered how to get students involved in
and excited about STEM at an early
age.
“Robotics seemed to be the best tool
to start with for kids because it’s kind
of a conglomerate of a lot of tech-
nology skills — coding, mechanical
engineering, electrical engineering,
physics, and computer science are
all embedded in it. If you look under
all those technologies, there’s deep
science and deep math; principles of
gravity — all the things that make
sensors and satellites work — but
with an added “sizzle” factor that gets
kids excited. With an understanding
of these concepts, students can go into
aerospace, coding, software develop-
ment, PCB board manufacturing, or
other technical fields.”
After looking at the STEM curriculum
options on the market, he identified
a gap between the younger grade
school ages and high school robotics
programs that existed at the time. He
also saw the need to provide education
that had real-world, practical applica-
tions. Minds-i developed its first robot
kit, a six-wheeled rover, which had
independent suspension and power
to all wheels and could crawl deftly
over football-size obstacles. It was an
instant hit with students and became
the base for the development of an ev-
er-growing number of curriculums and
products that utilize C++ program-
ming and technologically advanced
open-source robots.
APRIL | MAY 2020 ISSUE NO. 14
49