Future Engineers Meet Baxter

A group of 3rd through 5th graders from the Austin Elementary Robotics Team toured our HQ in Carrollton, Texas, yesterday.

The team from nearby Coppell, Texas, completed their first year of robotics competition last Saturday, after having advanced in two tournaments to the Regional Championship. Innovative-IDM Engineering Manager, Adam Ring, led the tour, which ended in a meeting with “Baxter” the infamous collaborative robot. Baxter is built by Rethink Robotics, Innovative-IDM’s latest high tech product offering.

(A big shout out to Shannon Bison at Rethink Robotics for providing some takeaway items for the kids.)

Adam received many great questions from these future engineers: “Where would Baxter be used?” “Can you give him verbal commands?” After hearing that Baxter’s smaller brother robot named Sawyer is on the way, one student asked, “When is Baxter going to get a little sister?” I thought this was the best question of all.

It was great to see how excited the students were to learn about this collaborative robot technology.  Who knows? One of these students may invent the next world-changing technology. Good luck Austin Elementary School in next year’s competition.                         — Todd Mueller